About the Book
"RETURN" by Karen Kingsbury is the second book in the "Redemption" series, following the story of a young couple, Luke and Reagan Baxter, as they navigate challenges in their marriage and face unexpected twists and turns. The novel explores themes of forgiveness, faith, and redemption as the characters struggle with past mistakes and strive to rebuild their relationship. Ultimately, "RETURN" delivers a heartfelt and inspiring message about the power of love and second chances.
David Brainerd
Born to a farming family in Haddam, Connecticut, Brainerd soon turned his aspirations to the clergy and a life of study. The early death of his parents, combined with a naturally melancholy personality, caused him to be morose and to fixate on the brevity of life, so that his religious life was characterized by prolonged depressions punctuated by ecstatic experiences of God. He began to study for the ministry at Yale College in 1739. During his first year he showed signs of the tuberculosis that was to end his life prematurely. During the following year, the New Light preaching of George Whitefield and other itinerants such as Gilbert Tennent and James Davenport gained many adherents at the college, including Brainerd, and he became involved in a separate church founded by students. In November 1741 he was reported as saying that one of the local ministers who was a college tutor had âno more grace than a chair.â Determined to snuff out the New Light among the students, the Yale Corporation, led by its rector, Thomas Clap, expelled Brainerd for refusing to make a public confession.
Officially barred from the ministry, Brainerd nonetheless became an itinerant preacher, filling pulpits of New Light sympathizers throughout New England and New York. In the process he gained the admiration of many clergymen, including Jonathan Dickinson, a Presbyterian minister of New Jersey and commissioner of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Dickinson in 1742 first proposed that Brainerd become a missionary. To prepare himself, in 1743 Brainerd went to work with John Sargeant, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians. He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York in 1744. From 1743 to 1747 he ministered to the Indians in western Massachusetts, eastern New York, the Lehigh region of Pennsylvania, and central New Jersey. At the New Jersey Bethel mission (near Cranbury), he achieved his most notable successes. Out of his experiences here came the publication of two installments of his journals that described both the revivals among the Delaware Indians and his own spiritual turmoil and exultation.
Brainerd preaching to the Indians for all of his zeal, however, Brainerdâs constitution could not stand up to the hardships of wilderness living. In April 1747, seriously weakened by tuberculosis, he left New Jersey for the home of his friend Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he died in October.
In 1749 Edwards published An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd, drawn from Brainerdâs extensive diaries and supplemented by Edwardsâs own commentary. Edwards sought to portray Brainerd as a model of Christian saintliness who manifested his faith in good works and self-sacrifice, expurgating many passages that recorded Brainerdâs depressions and enthusiasms. Over the centuries, this work has achieved international fame, has gone through countless printings, and has inspired many missionaries in pursuing their call.
Minkema, Kenneth P., âBrainerd, David,â in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 84-5.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
Do You Exercise for the Wrong Reasons
âWhen I run, I feel Godâs pleasure.â Such were the memorable words of Olympic sprinter and Christian missionary Eric Liddell (1902â1945), at least through the lens of Chariots of Fire , the 1981 Oscar-winning film that told his story. Perhaps youâve heard his inspiring line in terms of life calling. In what vocation  do you feel Godâs pleasure? What role or occupation does it seem he made you to fulfill? However, with the last generation of research in view, it might be interesting to introduce Liddell to the fairly recent discovery of endorphins, and ask how much they played a part in his feeling Godâs pleasure as a runner. My experience as a very amateur runner is that you donât have to be a pro to âfeel Godâs pleasureâ in, and because of, intense bodily exertion. God made endorphins to help us feel his joy. Godâs Grace in Exercise God made us to move, and to do so vigorously. And he wired our brains to reward and reinforce it. Regular human movement has been assumed throughout history, but the innovations and seeming progress of modern life have made a sedentary lifestyle more typical than ever before. Weâve never needed to state the obvious about exercise as much as we do today â not just for earthly health, but for the sake of spiritual soundness and strength. âEndorphins are a gift from God, put there by him to lead us to himself.â The word endorphins  is simply a shortened form of the phrase âendogenous morphine.â In other words, these are morphine-like chemicals that originate within our bodies. They âinhibit the transmission of pain signals; they may also produce a feeling of euphoria.â And they are a gift from God, put there by him to lead us to himself. It wasnât until as recently as 1974 that two independent groups first discovered and documented this long-undiscovered divine kindness tucked quietly inside the human brain. Endorphins, and their effect of bodily pleasure, subconsciously incline humans toward certain activities, like raucous laughter or spicy foods. But in particular, the most notable and discussed is âvigorous aerobic exercise.â As John Piper cites in When I Donât Desire God , Either brief periods of intense training or prolonged aerobic workouts raise levels of chemicals in the brain, such as endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine, that produce feelings of pleasure. (203) And the holy pursuit of pleasure is an unblushing Christian concern throughout the pages of Scripture, and most pointedly so in the words of Christ himself. For Joy in God Have you seriously considered how physical  exertion can be a means, among others, of your spiritual  health and joy? God made our bodies with an enigmatic connection to our souls. How God stirs our souls in worship and Bible meditation often has tangible and unpredictable effects in our bodies. And what we eat and drink, and how we sleep, in our physical bodies affects our level of contentment in the soul. According to professor David Murray, âExercise and proper rest patterns generate about a 20 percent energy increase in an average day, while exercising three to five times a week is about as effective as anti-depressants for mild to moderate depressionâ ( Reset , 79). âGlorifying God with our bodies is not mainly about what we donât do.â God not only means for us to enjoy the long-term benefits of regular bodily exertion, but also the immediate effects that bolster and energize our emotions that day. And having our souls happy in God (with whatever little supplement we can get from exercise) is the premier way to fight and defeat the alluring lies of sin. Author and pastor Gary Thomas testifies, âUnderstanding my body as an instrument of service to God is giving me renewed motivation to take better care of it in the face of my cravings and lazinessâ ( Every Body Matters , 20). For Love of Others But regular bodily exertion not only can assist our personal pursuit of joy in God, and fight against joy-destroying sin, but also ready us to move beyond self-focus and have our hearts primed to meet the needs of others. The beneficiary of exercise that is truly Christian is not just me, but my family, my neighbors, my church, my coworkers, and anyone else God puts in my life to bless in word and deed. As Piper explains elsewhere, Today, my main motive for exercise is purity and productivity. By purity, I mean being a more loving person (as Jesus said, âlove your neighbor,â Matthew 22:39). By productivity, I mean getting a lot done (as Paul said, âabounding in the work of the Lord,â 1 Corinthians 15:58). . . . In short, I have one life to live for Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:15). I donât want to waste it. My approach is not mainly to lengthen it, but to maximize purity and productivity now. Precisely because âwe are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in themâ (Ephesians 2:10), we want to cultivate our bodies so that they are a help, rather than a hindrance, in the cause of love. We want our bodies to be an aid, not a net neutral, in readying us to sacrifice our own comforts to do good for others, at home and around the world. For Godâs Own Joy Yet exercise not only can contribute to the matrix of our joy, and in doing so help ready us to meet the needs of others, but what goes unsaid far too often is that glorifying God with our bodies is not mainly about what we donât do . Itâs easy to focus on the many unrighteous acts from which we should abstain, but glorifying him in our bodies is first and foremost a positive pursuit and opportunity. And, as in the parable of the talents, our bodies are gifts from him to grow and develop, not bury and let languish. âThe biblical take on exercise is not âLife is short; let your body go,â but, âHarness the body God gave you.ââ God is not opposed to our bodily existence; neither is he uninterested. He is for the body.  âThe body is . . . for the Lord, and the Lord for the bodyâ (1 Corinthians 6:13). And not only is he for the body  in this age, but also in the age to come. The very next verse reads, âGod raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his powerâ (1 Corinthians 6:14). The creative brilliance and glory of Godâs design in the human body will not be discarded at Christâs second coming. Our future is embodied. Faithful Christian theology does not diminish the importance of our bodies, but heightens it â from Godâs creative design, to his ongoing affirmation, to his promise to raise them, to his calling to use them. Feel His Pleasure The biblical take on exercise is not âLife is short; let your body go.â Rather, with Godâs revealed truth ringing in our ears, we say, âLife is too short to not harness the body God gave me.â Our assignment in this age is a vapor. We are âa mist that appears for a little time and then vanishesâ (James 4:14). Too much is at stake, and our days are too few, to limp our way through by not leveraging our bodies (as weâre able) as the gifts from God they are. Join me in learning what itâs like to feel the pleasure of God.
