“As we meet and touch each day
The many travelers on our way,
Let every such brief contact be
A glorious, helpful ministry;
The contact of the soil and seed,
Each giving to the other’s need,
Each helping on the other’s best,
And blessing each as well as blest.”
Even kindness may be overdone. One may be too gentle. Love may hold others back from duty, and thus may wreck destinies. We need to guard against meddling with God’s discipline, softening the experience that he means to be hard, sheltering our friend from the wind that he intends to blow chillingly. All summer does not make a good zone to live in; we need autumn and winter to temper the heat, and keep vegetation from luxuriant overgrowth. The best thing we can do for others is not always take their load or do their duty for them.
Of course we are to be helpful to others. No aim should be put higher in our life plans than that of personal helpfulness. The motto of the true Christian cannot be other than that of the Master; “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Even in the ambition to gather and retain wealth, the spirit of the desire must be, if we are Christians at all, that thereby we may become more helpful to others; that through, or by means of, our wealth, we may be enabled to do larger and greater good. Whatever gift, power, or possession we have that we do not seek to use in this way is not yet truly devoted to God. Fruit is the test of character, and the purpose of fruit is not to adorn the tree or vine, but the feed hunger. Whatever we are, whatever we have, is fruit, and must be held for the feeding of the hunger of others. Thus personal helpfulness is the aim of all truly consecrated life. In so far as we are living for ourselves, we are not Christians.
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