| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 14 |
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There is in a home an invalid who requires all the time and thought of another member of the household in loving attention. It may be an aged parent needing the help of a child; it may be a child, crippled, blind, or sick, needing all a parent’s care; or it may be a brother broken in health on which a sister is called to wait continually with patient love. And sometimes those who are required thus to spend their days and nights in ministry for others feel that their lives count for nothing in work for Christ. They hear the appeal for labourers and for service, but cannot respond. Their hands are already filled. Yet Jesus whispers, “These for whom you are toiling, caring, and spending time and strength are mine, and in doing for them you are doing for me just as acceptable work as are those who are toiling without distraction or hindrance in the great open field.”
Sometimes the work we do for Christ with purest love fails, or seems to fail of result. Nothing appears to come of it. There are whole lifetimes of godly people that seem to yield nothing. A word ought to be said about this kind of doing for Christ. We are to set it down as true without exception that no work wrought in Christ’s name and with love for him is ever lost. What we, in our limited, short sighted vision, planned to do may not be accomplished, but God’s purpose goes on in every consecrated life, in every true deed done. The disciples thought that Mary’s costly ointment was wasted. So it seemed; but this world has been a little sweeter ever since the breaking of the vase that let the perfume escape into its common air. So it is with many things that are done, and many lives that are lived. They seem to fail, and there is nothing on the earth to show where they have been. Yet somehow the stock of human happiness is larger and the world is a little better.
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