Heart of a founder: John Wesley
Those whom God would use greatly,
He first wounds deeply.
AW Tozer
This is the story of John Wesley’s broken heart.
In August 1748 John Wesley rode into Newcastle where he stayed at one of his homes for orphans. He fell sick. Grace Murray who ran the orphanage cared for him.
The more he grew to know her the more he grew to love her.
Wesley wrote in this diary, “I esteemed and loved her more and more. And when I was a little recovered I told her. . ‘If I ever marry, I think you will be the person.’”
She loved the Lord and served as a leader of others. She had no fear of the mobs that harrassed the early Methodists when they preached in the open air.
She began to accompany Wesley on some of his missions. “I saw the work of God prosper in her hands. She lightened my burden more than can be expressed.” She was a natural and spiritual leader. She visited the sick, prayed with down hearted and won many to Christ. She was a servant, a friend, a fellow-labourer in the Gospel.
Finally in Dublin they made a private agreement with each other to marry. Solemnly Wesley told her, “I do take thee as my wife.” and she replied, “I do take thee as my husband.”
Wesely waited till he had consulted with the other leaders of his movement including his brother Charles, before formally and legally marrying Grace.
But another man was in love with her, John Bennet.
After pressure from him and form Charles who did not approve of the marriage, Grace began to reconsider. There was an agonizing time of uncertainty that tore John’s heart in two. There was gossip and misunderstanding.
Finally Grace insisted that John and her renew their commitment to marry. Which they did before witnesses. John left elated.
But soon after as he read from Ezekiel he heard words that came as a sword to his heart, “Son of Man, behold I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.” Immediately a shivering ran through me, and in a few minutes I was in a fever.“
John believed that Grace was legally and morally his wife. His brother Charles opposed the marriage. Believing that she had been stolen from another man. Charles came and took her away to Newcastle.
Wesley was urged to follow and win her back. Which he could have done. Instead he wrote in his journal, ”I calmly committed the cause to God.“
This was a decisive moment in his life.
That day he was committed to preach elsewhere. He had to choose. Would he ride to Newcastle to win her back or continue on in to fulfill his commitment. That day he says, as he went about his ministry, ”I was in great heaviness, my heart was sinking in me like a stone. Only so long as I was preaching I felt ease.“
Meanwhile Charles had convinced Grace that she would ruin the Methodist movement by marrying John. Reluctantly she agreed to immediately marry Bennet.
Soon after Charles came to realised that he had totally misunderstood the facts. He had listened to the gossip and the half truths and deeply wounded his brother. John Wesley forgave his brother and sought to love and serve both Grace and her new husband as brother and sister.
But he had paid the price. When he refused to chase after her but to go and preach, he set his course for the rest of his life.
John Wesley chose to obey God in his moment of trial. God used him to turn a nation around. To begin a movement that shaped the course of history. Not just in England where at the end of his life there were 100,000 Methodists, but throughout the whole world.
Lesson: Great founders are surrendered.
