| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 12 |
Page 8 |
These reflections may help us to answer the question of the letter at the beginning of this chapter. Christ tells us through our various relationships what he wants us to do each day, each hour. To the little child he gives duty through the parents’ guidance, command, example, and teaching. In home life all relative duties become plain and clear. In our contact with friends and neighbors the voice of Christ speaks to us continually in the human needs that appeal to us, and in the opportunities of usefulness that comes to us. In our church life, also, work is bought to our hand in the calls for service.
True, we cannot do everything that offers. There are many things, too, which we could not do if we were to try. “To every one his work,” according to his gifts. There is wide room for good judgment in choosing the things we can do and ought to do. God has given us brains to be used. We are to think ourselves. It is very foolish for any one to try to have a hand in all manner of good work. “This one thing I do,” is a motto, which it is wise to follow in all lines of life. It is usually better that we do one thing well than give ten things a touch and then leave them.
The most useful people in any community are the plodders who make choice of one class of work and devote themselves to it year after year. It is better for most of us that we devote ourselves to the helping and uplifting of a few people than that we scatter our influence over hundreds. Then we can make impressions on their lives that will last forever. Jesus gave his whole public life to twelve men, but he so stamped his impression on their lives that they went out and moved the world.
We cannot expect the guidance that little children get in finding the duties of our consecration; but we shall never lack true guidance if only we will follow. One day’s work leads to another. One duty opens the way to another. We are never shown maps of continents with all the course of life projected on them; but we shall be shown always the next duty, and then the next. If only we are obedient, there shall never come a time when we cannot know what our next duty is. One disobedience, however, breaks the continuity of the guidance, and the thread may be hard to find again. Those who follow Christ never walk in darkness.
There is need of preparation. The life must be holy that Christ will employ. The vessel must be clean that the King will use. The heart must be broken through which God’s love may flow. Some one gives a Consecration Prayer: “Lord, take me, break me, make me,” and tells the story of a golden cup which had been made out of old coins. These had lost the image and superscription originally upon them, and were then thrown into a melting-pot and wrought into a beautiful cup. So oftentimes a human life has lost its beauty; and then the Master takes it, breaks it, and makes it over again in form of beauty. Then the King will use it.
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