| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 19 |
Page 6 |
There is but one thing to do to get out of life all its possibilities of attainment and achievement; we must train ourselves to take what every moment brings to us of privilege and duty. Some people worry themselves over the vague wonder as to what the divine plan in life is for them. They have a feeling that god had some definite purpose in creating the, and that there is something he wants them to do in this world, and they would like to know how they can learn this divine thought for their life. The answer is really very simple. God is ready to reveal to us, with unerring definiteness, his plan for our life. This revealing he makes as we go on, showing us each moment one little fragment of his purpose. Says Faber: “The surest method of aiming at knowledge of God’s eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. Each hour comes with some little fagot of God’s will fastened upon its back.”
We have nothing to do, therefore, with anything save the privilege and duty of the one hour now passing. This makes the problem of living very simple. We need not look at our life as a whole, nor even carry the burden of a single year; if we but grasp well the meaning of the one little fragment of time immediately present, and do instantly all the duty and take all the privilege that the one hour brings, we shall thus do that which shall best please God and build up our own life into completeness. It ought never to be hard for us to do this.
“God broke our years to hours and days, that hour by hour
And day by day
Just going on a little way,
We might be able all along
To keep quite strong.
Should all the weight of life
Be laid across our shoulder, and the future, rife
With woe and struggle, meet us face to face
At just one place,
We could not go,
Our feet would stop; and so
God lays a little on us every day,
And never, I believe, on all the way
Will burdens bear so deep,
Or pathways lie so threatening and so steep,
But we can go, if by God’s power
We only bear the burden of the hour.”
Living thus we shall make each hour radiant with the radiance of duty well done, and radiant hours will make radiant years. But the missing of privileges and the neglecting of duties will leave days and years marred and blemished and make the life at last like a moth eaten garment. We must catch the sacred meaning of our opportunities if we would live up to our best.
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