Guest Columnist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets

Aubrey Alsobrook

The basis of this article is from a sermon Rev. Jim McIllrath preached at the Americus First United Methodist Church on May 18 and the Internet on the story of William Borden. William Borden was the heir to an enormous fortune. After he had finished high school at sixteen his parents gave him a tour of the world. As he visited Asia, the Middle East, and Europe he felt a growing burden for the world’s hurting people. Finally, Bill Borden wrote home about his “desire to become a missionary.” In response, Bill wrote two words in the back of his Bible: “No Reserves.”
During his college years at Yale he made an entry in his personal Journal: “Say ‘No’ to self and ‘Yes’ to Jesus every time.Borden’s first disappointment at Yale came when the university president spoke on the student’s need of “having a fixed purpose.” After hearing that speech, Borden wrote: “He neglected to say what our purpose should be, and where we should get the ability to persevere and the strength to resist temptation.”During his first semester at Yale he and another student began having a prayer time before breakfast. Soon another student joined them, and then another. By the time Bill Borden was a senior, 1,000 of Yale’s 1300 students were meeting in such groups.

Borden’s outreach ministry reached out in the community to rescue alcoholics and to rehabilitate them and founded the Yale Hope Mission.Upon graduation from Yale, Borden turned down several high paying offers. In his Bible he wrote two more words: “No Retreat.”He went on to Princeton Seminary after graduation. When he finished at Princeton he sailed for China to work with Muslims. He stopped in Egypt to study Arabic; while there he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25 year-old William Borden was dead.Was Borden’s untimely death a waste? Not in God’s plan. Prior to his death, Borden had written two more words in his bible. Underneath the words: “No Reserves” and No Retreats” he had written: “No Regrets.”Borden lived out Jesus’ words, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt.1:39)