David Brainerd Quotes

Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.

Here am I, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage lost of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in your service, and to promote your kingdom

Let me forget the world and be swallowed up in the desire to glorify God.

I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts.

Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.

We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labour faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.

There is a God in heaven who overrules all things for the best; and this is the comfort of my soul.

Further, Take heed that you faithfully perform the business you have to do in the world, from a regard to the commands of God; and not from an ambitious desire of being esteemed better than others.

It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God. God Himself could not make him happy any other way... There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God's work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing his whole will.

Oh! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world.

I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so I could but gain souls to Christ

I longed to be a flame of fire continually glowing in the divine service and building up of Christ's kingdom to my last and dying breath.

It is sweet to be nothing and less than nothing that Christ may be all in all.

I have received my all from God. Oh, that I could return my all to God.

If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.

As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!

When you cease from labour, fill up your time in reading, meditation, and prayer: and while your hands are labouring, let your heart be employed, as much as possible, in divine thoughts.

I love to live on the brink of eternity.

All my desire was the conversion of the heathen... I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.

Saw so much of the wickedness of my heart that I longed to get away from myself...I felt almost pressed to death with my own vileness. Oh what a body of death is there in me...Oh the closest walk with God is the sweetest heaven that can be enjoyed on earth!

Oh that God would humble me deeply in the dust before Him! i deserve Hell every day for not lovingmy Lord more, who has, i trust, loved me and given Himself for me.

Thirsting desires and longings possessed my soul after perfect holiness. God was so precious to my soul that the world with all its enjoyments appeared vile. I had no more value for the favor of men than for pebbles.

No amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls.

Once more, never think that you can live to God by your own power or strength; but always look to and rely on him for assistance, yea, for all strength and grace.

We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.

I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altigether devoted to Him. i want to wear out my life in His service, and for His Glory!!

God designs that those whom He sanctifies...shall tarry awhile in this present evil world, that their own experience of temptations may teach them how great the deliverance is, which God has wrought for them.

Oh! it is sweet to be thus weaned from friends, and from myself, and dead to the present world, that so I may live wholly to and upon the blessed God!

I think my soul never was in such an agony before. I felt no restraint, for the treasures of divine grace were opened to me. I wrestled for absent friends, for the ingathering of souls, for multitudes of poor souls, and for many that I thought were the children of God, in many distant places. I was in such an agony, for half an hour before sunset, till near dark, that I was all over wet with sweat: but yet is seemed to me that I had wasted away the day, and had done nothing. Oh!, my dear Savior did sweat blood for poor souls!

Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God's glory!

I have a secret thought from some things I have observed, that God may perhaps design you for some singular service in the world.

Of late God has been pleased to keep my soul hungry almost continually, so that I have been filled with a kind of pleasing pain. When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable and my thirstings after holiness more unquenchable.

My desires seem especially to be after weanedness from the world, perfect deadness to it, and that I may be crucified to all its allurements. My soul desires to feel itself more of a pilgrim and a stranger here below, that nothing may divert me from pressing through the lonely desert, till I arrive at my Father's house.

The whole world appears to me like a huge vacuum, a vast empty space, whence nothing desirable, or at least satisfactory, can possibly be derived; and I long daily to die more and more to it; even though I obtain not that comfort from spiritual things which I earnestly desire.

Oh! how amazing it is that people can talk so much about men's power and goodness, when if God did not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incarnate!

The Lord help me to press after God forever

Oh that I may never loiter on my heavenly journey.

This morning about nine I withdrew to the woods for prayer. I was in such anguish that when I arose from my knees I felt extremely weak and overcome. ...I cared not how or where I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ.

My soul often mourned of more time and opportunity to be alone with God

O my Blessed God! let me climb up near to Him, and love, and long, and plead, and wrestle, and strech after Him, and for deliverence from the body of sin and death. Alas! my soul mourned to think i should ever lose sight of its Beloved again. O come, Lord Jesus, amen.

In the silences I make in the midst of the turmoil of life I have appointments with God. From these silences I come forth with spirit refreshed, and with a renewed sense of power. I hear a voice in the silences, and become increasingly aware that it is the voice of God.

I love to live alone in my own little cottage, where I can spend much time in prayer, etc

I have ever found it, when I have thought the battle was over and the conquest gained, and so let down my watch, the enemy has risen up and done me the greatest injury.

Whatever else you fail of, do not fail of the influence of the Holy Spirit; that is the only way you can handle the consciences of men.

Worldly pleasures, such as flow from greatness, riches, honours, and sensual gratifications, are infinitely worse than none

Ardent love or desire introduced, as passionately longing to please and glorify the Divine Being, to be in every respect conformed to him, and in that way to enjoy him.

Be careful to make a good improvement of precious time.

Oh, how precious is time! And how guilty it makes me feel when I think I have trifled away and misimproved it, or neglected to fill up each part of it with duty to the utmost of my ability and capacity

God plans all perfect combinations.

I have withstood the power of convictions a long time; and therefore I fear I shall be finally left of God.