Born in 1887, William Borden was a wealthy young man, persuasive, influential, and athletically and academically gifted. In 1904 after finishing high school, he travelled around the world, visiting Asia, the Middle East and Europe, before entering Yale University in 1905. He started meeting with a few friends to pray together in the mornings before breakfast, and this prayer group resulted in a movement across the whole campus, so that by Borden’s final year, one thousand students were meeting in groups for weekly Bible study and prayer.
Instead of aspiring to a career in business, Borden announced his intention to become a missionary. When someone suggested that he was “throwing himself away as a missionary”, he wrote in the back of his Bible: “No reserves.” Later he added the words, “No retreats,” and then the words, “No regrets.” He felt called to the Muslim Kansu people in China, and in December 1912 he sailed for Egypt in order to study Arabic before moving to China. Four months later, in April 1913, at the age of 25, he died of spinal meningitis in Egypt.
Did William Borden waste his life, throwing himself away as a failed missionary? Surely he could have made a much greater contribution if he had lived longer? It is hard to understand the way God works. It all comes down to whether you believe what Borden believed: “Say ‘no’ to self and ‘yes’ to Jesus every time.”