Dr. David Livingstone (1813-1873) was a pioneer missionary and explorer in Africa. Except for brief furloughs, he spent his whole life there after arriving in 1841. He went where no other white man had gone, so that he could tell people about Christ. He actively fought the slave trade, and believed that Christianity was the answer to ending it. After being out of contact with the world for a number of years, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, a newspaper reporter went in search of him in 1871, supposedly finding him and greeting him with the words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

After Livingstone had been in Africa for some time, friends wrote, “We would like to send other men to you. Have you found a good road into your area yet?”

Livingstone replied, “If you find men who will only come if they know where there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

Livingstone said of his discipleship: “I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of that kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by the giving or keeping of it I shall most promote the glory of Him to who I owe my hopes in time and eternity. May grace and strength sufficient to enable me to adhere faithfully to this resolution be imparted to me, so that, not in name only, all my interest may be identified with His causes.”

Although we would probably disagree with him on some of his theology, we can see that Livingstone caught the essence of what it means to follow Christ. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoseover will save his life shall lose it, and whoseover will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26).

Consider that we leave our air-conditioned houses, to get in our air-conditioned automobiles, to come to an air conditioned church building to worship. What if the convenience were taken out of worship? What if there were no good roads? What if we had to go back to the horse and buggy days? What if there were no roads at all?