Mystical Journey Through a Forest

In eighteenth-century America, deep in the wilderness, a frail young man walked with determination, his heart burning with an inner flame. David Brainerd, born in 1718 into a devout family, lost his parents at an early age. Instead of breaking him, this sorrow drove him to seek God’s comfort and calling. At the age of twenty, after long spiritual struggles and days of prayer and fasting, he had a decisive encounter with Christ. From that moment on, he longed for nothing else but to “burn like a flame for God, until the very last hour.” One evening, while traveling through Indian territory, David knelt in the forest to pray. Hidden in the shadows, warriors watched him, ready to strike. But as they heard him cry out to the “Great Spirit” for the salvation of their souls, they withdrew, shaken. The next morning, instead of facing hostility, he was welcomed with respect. In the center of the village, he read from Isaiah 53 about the suffering servant, and the fierce faces of the warriors were soon wet with tears. From then on, Brainerd dedicated himself to bringing the Gospel to the tribes. Yet the path was anything but easy. His body was frail, nights in the freezing woods wore him down, and often he wrestled with doubt. In his journals, however, he described how prayer sustained him. For hours, alone in the forest, he pleaded with God until he was exhausted, begging for the souls of the Indians. Slowly, his efforts bore fruit. Hundreds, and later thousands, of Native people listened with deep emotion. Some fell to their knees, struck with conviction of sin, others wept as they discovered the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Even when his interpreter was drunk and barely able to stand, the Spirit of God worked powerfully, and lives were changed. But Brainerd’s fragile health was declining. Consumed by tuberculosis, he knew his days were short. His fiancée, Jerusha Edwards, daughter of the theologian Jonathan Edwards, cared for him tenderly. Yet David did not seek comfort or rest—he longed to burn to the very end. “Here am I, Lord, send me, even if it costs my life,” he wrote. In 1747, at only twenty-nine years old, Brainerd breathed his last in Jonathan Edwards’ home. On his deathbed, he whispered his longing to be with God: “Oh, come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!” Only months later, Jerusha followed him to the grave. Though his time on earth was short, his testimony bore immense fruit. Jonathan Edwards published his journals, which inspired generations of missionaries: William Carey in India, Robert M’Cheyne among the Jews, Henry Martyn in Persia. All saw in Brainerd a model of a life consumed for God. Thus, though he lived only twenty-nine years, David Brainerd accomplished the work of a lifetime. As he once said: “I long to be a flame of fire, burning constantly in the service of God, until the last moment, the hour of death.”