They had almost nothing left to give—but they still had a decision to make. The money was running out. Families faced hunger. The work they had committed themselves to could no longer offer even the smallest financial support. Then, around a table set with bread and wine, a company of workers made a declaration that still demands our attention.
In the passage from John G. Lake: The Complete Collection of His Life Teachings, the sermon “A Trumpet Call” is set in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1908. Lake recalled a young mission with 125 men serving in the field. The institution was not yet widely known, and its workers were far from the countries where help might come from. As its finances collapsed, Lake could no longer send the workers ten dollars at the end of the month. Eventually, he could not send even two.
The crisis reached into the homes of those at headquarters. Clothes were sold. Pieces of furniture were sold. Anything they could spare became another effort to keep the work going. This was not sacrifice as a stirring word in a speech. It was sacrifice becoming visible in what people no longer owned. Lake also recognized the responsibility of leaving workers and their families in the field: they needed to know how desperate the circumstances had become.
The Decision Behind the Closed Door
One evening during the conference, a committee asked Lake to leave the room so the workers could speak privately. He stepped out to a restaurant for coffee. When he returned, the room had changed. The chairs had been arranged in an oval. At one end stood a small table holding bread and wine. While he was away, the company had reached its decision. Father Van der Wall spoke for them:
“Brother Lake, during your absence, we have come to a conclusion. We have made our decision. We want you to serve the Lord's Supper. We are going back to our fields. We are going back if we have to walk back. We are going back if we have to starve. We are going back if our wives die. We are going back if our children die. We are going back if we die ourselves. We have but one request. If we die, we want you to come and bury us.”
Consider the scale of the work: 125 men in the field, with families facing the uncertainty alongside them. Lake’s account does not establish that every one of those men was present for this declaration, but the company’s words reveal the gravity of the decision before them. They were not discussing a minor inconvenience. They were acknowledging that returning could cost them everything.
The Cost Lake Remembered
The next year, Lake reported burying twelve men and sixteen wives and children. He believed the twelve men might have survived if they had received adequate food. That detail gives the story its terrible weight: the losses were real, and Lake himself believed some might have been prevented. These were not numbers to admire from a distance. They were people whose absence remained after the conference ended.
Lake connected this costly dedication with the extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit he described in South Africa. In his judgment, the workers’ commitment helped explain why the movement had such power. The supplied passage tells us his interpretation; it does not describe individual miracles or establish that suffering itself produced them. What it does place before us is the enormous distance between speaking about commitment and living with its consequences.
Stop Calling Intentions Commitment
Now bring the question closer to home. What happens when keeping your word costs you an evening, an inconvenience, or the effort to finish a task? What happens when enthusiasm fades, and someone is still depending on the promise you made? Against the scale of hardship in Lake’s account, many of your everyday commitments ask for only a fraction of the sacrifice. Yet even those promises can be abandoned when following through becomes uncomfortable.
The challenge is direct: let your word mean something. Move beyond announcing your dedication and demonstrate it in the responsibility before you. When the cost is small, and you still refuse to follow through, your grand declarations ring hollow. Commitment begins where excuses end—and where the promise finally becomes action.
