Described as the “greatest missionary since Saint Paul,” he wrote 29 books; traveled the world, often speaking three times daily; was a close confidant of President Franklin D. Roosevelt; was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize; and was elected a Methodist bishop in 1928 (but declined consecration, preferring to do mission work). The man with so many accomplishments and accolades was E. Stanley Jones, who devoted his life to evangelism and mission work in India.

Although his name is fairly well-known in Christian circles, less well-known is the fact that after his first eight years of service in India, Jones suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Broken both mentally and physically, he was forced to take a furlough back home to the United States. His doctors held out little hope that he could ever return to India and resume his mission work again. With that prognosis, Jones’ dreams were dashed. He had been 17 when he had experienced a conversion to Christianity and then studied at Asbury College in Wilmore, KY. While there he had been “flooded by the spirit” for four days and felt a distinct call to missionary service. He had left for India in 1907, arriving at Lucknow.

Of his breakdown he wrote, “I was suffering so severely from brain fatigue and nervous exhaustion that I collapsed, not once but several times.” Reluctantly, he boarded a ship to take him home. Even while conducting services on the ship taking him back to America, Jones collapsed again. The ship’s doctor put him to bed, ordering him to remain there for the duration of the trip.

After a year of rest in the United States he returned to India but first stopped in the Philippines to hold evangelistic meetings with university students in Manila. During those services, Jones again collapsed. This time, doctors urgently warned him that returning to India and resuming his rigorous schedule could worsen his condition or even kill him. Nevertheless, he traveled to India, but went “with a deepening cloud upon me. When I arrived in Bombay, I was so broken that I went straight to the hills for another long rest. Again, I descended to the plains, and again I was shocked and crushed to discover that I couldn’t take it. I was exhausted mentally, nervously and physically. I was completely at the end of my resources.”

This was an ominous and devastating blow to Jones, who had just returned after a year of rest and furlough in the United States. “I realized that I would have to give up my missionary career, go back to America, and work on a farm to try to regain my health. It was one of my darkest hours.”

While conducting evangelistic meetings in Lucknow, Jones was praying one evening when an event transpired that completely transformed his life. While in prayer he heard a voice speak to him asking, “Are you yourself ready for this work to which I have called you?” He replied, “No, Lord, I am done for. I have reached the end of my resources.” The same voice responded, “If you will turn that over to me and not worry about it, I will take care of it.” Jones quickly answered, “Lord, I close the bargain right there.”
Imme-diately, he experienced God’s healing grace. “A great peace settled into my heart and pervaded my whole being. I knew it was done! Life — abundant life — had taken possession of me.” He walked home that evening as a man renewed mentally, physically and spiritually. Jones said he began preaching, teaching, counseling, writing — often working from early morning until far into the night — all without the slightest trace of weariness or exhaustion. “I seemed possessed by life and peace and rest — by Christ Himself.”

This was not a temporary cure. Jones, recalling that time, wrote, “More than a score of the most strenuous years of my life have gone by since then, but the old trouble has never returned. I have never had such health. But it was more than a physical touch. I seemed to have tapped new life for body, mind and spirit. After that experience, life for me functioned on a permanently higher level. And I had done nothing but take it!”

For many decades, Jones would continue his mission work in India, where he affectionately was called “Brother Stanley.” His preaching and teaching attracted wide attention among students and academic leaders, resulting in many invitations to speak at India’s largest and most prestigious universities. In 1925, while on another furlough in the United States, Jones wrote The Christ of the Indian Road. It told of his work in India and became an instant best-seller with more than a million copies sold.

Jones’ ministry in India brought him into close contact with many national leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, Jones wrote a glowing biography of Gandhi. Many years later, Martin Luther King Jr. told Jones’ daughter, Eunice Jones Matthews, that it was the reading of her father’s biography of Gandhi that convinced him to adopt the strictly nonviolent method in the U.S. civil rights struggle.

For the rest of his life, Jones traveled the world, often speaking three times daily. For many of those years he wrote one book a year and always maintained a heavy correspondence schedule. Even after a severe stroke at age 88 robbed him of his speech, Jones managed to dictate into a tape recorder his last book, The Divine Yes. He died in his beloved India on Jan. 25, 1973.

Jones’ life-changing experience should be of great encouragement to all who feel at the end of their resources. The grace of God that flowed to E. Stanley Jones can flow into other broken lives. The Bible reminds all of us to do what Jones did: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). God can be trusted and counted on to make us whole.