| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 14 |
Page 6 |
Many people die, and see yet no harvest from their life’s sowing. They come to the end of their years, and their hands are empty. But when they enter heaven they will find that they have really been building there all the while, that the things that have seemed to leave no result on the earth have left glorious results inside the gates of pearl.
“There is no end to the sky,
And the stars are everywhere,
And time is eternity,
And the here is over there;
For the common deeds of the common day
Are ringing bells in the far away.”
Then even if the work we do does not itself leave any record, the doing of it leaves a record–an impression–on our own life. There is a word of Scripture which says, “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Doing God’s will builds up enduring character in us. Every obedience adds a new touch of beauty to the soul. Every true thing we do in Christ’s name, though it leaves no mark anywhere else in God’s universe, leaves an imperishable mark on our own life. Every deed of unselfish kindness that we perform with love for Christ in our heart, though it blesses no other soul in all the world, leaves its sure benediction on ourselves.
Thousands of years since a leaf fell on the soft clay and seemed to be lost. But last summer a geologist in his ramblings broke off a piece of rock with his hammer, and there lay the image of the leaf, with every line, and every vein, and all the delicate tracery, preserved in the stone through these centuries. So the words we speak, and the things we do for Christ today, may seem to be lost, but in the great final revealing the smallest of them will appear, to the glory of Christ and the reward of the doer.
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