“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Php 3:10-11).
John Nelson Hyde was born at Carrollton, Illinois, on November 9, 1865. When his oldest brother, Edmund, died while preparing to go to the mission field, John felt the need to go himself. Arriving in India in 1892, he was described as “slow of speech,” but he gave himself to countless days and nights of prayer, earning the name “Praying Hyde.”
He wrote: “When we keep near to Jesus it is He who draws souls to Himself through us, but He must be lifted up in our lives; that is, we must be crucified with Him. It is ‘self’ in some shape that comes between us and Him, so self must be dealt with as He was dealt with. Self must be crucified, dead and buried with Christ….then the new man will be revived, raised and seated—the corresponding steps upward which God permits us to take.”