By J.R. Miller
There is a great deal of waste in all lines of life--because men scatter their energies over too wide a field. Instead of doing one thing well, they do a dozen things indifferently. No one is great enough to do everything. In the arts and professions, men are more and more becoming specialists. Even ordinary ability would be sure of success, if it found its true place, and then devoted itself wholly to its work. Though a man may fail again and again, if he persists and never becomes discouraged, he will at last succeed.
There is a remarkable direction in our Lord's instruction to the seventy disciples. Among other things, He bade them to greet no one along the way. The salutations of those days were tedious and required much time, and the errands on which His messengers were sent were urgent and required haste. Not a moment must be lost on the way. When a disciple begged to be allowed to bury his father before going on his errand, the Master refused the request. The dead could bury their own dead, and he must hasten to carry the Gospel message.
If we would concentrate all our energies in one purpose, we would do all our work better. We would then always do our best, even in the commonest things of our daily task work. If we are writing only a postal card to a friend, we will do it as carefully as if we were writing a letter of greatest importance. We would gather all the forces of our heart into the simplest kindness we show to anyone. There are authors who have written one or two books of great interest and value and then have grown indifferent, doing nothing more worth while. They were too well satisfied with their early success or a little praise turned their heads, and they never did their best again.
An old painter, after standing long in silent meditation before his canvas, with hands crossed meekly on his breast and his head bent reverently, said, "May God forgive me that I did not do it better." There are many of us who ought to have the same experience of penitence, as we contemplate the things we have done. We should continually implore forgiveness for doing our work so poorly, for we are not doing our best. If only we would learn to put all the energy of our souls into each piece of work we do, we would do do fine work for the Savior.
In our Christian life, we should seek only one thing--the attainment of the highest reaches in character and service. If an absorbing passion for Christ ruled us, it would bring all our life into harmony with itself. When Christ is taken into the chief place in the life, everything which is not in harmony with His peerless beauty must go out, and only the things that are in keeping with the mind and spirit of Christ, can have a place in the life.
When Christ becomes really the one thing of our lives, there is less and less of living for self, and more and more of consecration to the service of love. Some people suppose that holiness separates a man from his fellows, that as he becomes really like Christ--he grows out of touch and sympathy with people, less interested in their human affairs, less gentle, less kindly, less human, less accessible, and less helpful. But it is not the religion of Christ, which produces such results. Never did any other man get so near to people as Christ Himself did. He lived among them; they loved Him and trusted Him, and they told Him everything. When Christ truly enters a man, one of the unmistakable marks of His indwelling, is the new love which begins to appear in the man's life. His religion made Paul a friend of man, eager to help everyone he met. When Christ really gets possession of a heart, the sweet flowers of love begin to grow in the life. If we are not becoming more patient, more glad hearted, more charitable, more kindly, more thoughtful. If there is not in us an increasing desire to help others, to do them good--we need to pray for more of the love of God in our hearts. We may tell people that Christ is still in this world, coming close to them in their needs--but He is here only as He lives in us. He has no other present incarnation but in the lives of His friends. He helps the suffering, the toiling folk, the weary hearted, the weak, the sorrowing--but only through us. We are most like to Christ--when we are nearest to the hearts of men, when our sympathies are widest, when we are the gentlest, when our hands are readiest to minister.
If in our hearts the great master purpose is to live for Christ only, we will grow continually away from all that is worldly and unworthy, toward things which are spiritual and Divine. Paul describes himself as forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before.
The life which is under the full dominance and sway of Christ, is ever unfolding new beauty, and growing into holier, sweeter, tenderer, diviner character and into larger, fuller usefulness. For while the beauty of Christ becomes more and more manifest in the personal life, the influence of Christ is manifested more and more distinctly in the impression made on the world. If our citizenship is truly in heaven, we will carry the atmosphere of heaven with us wherever we go, and heavenly flowers and fruits will grow about us which but for us would not have been there. There is no more infallible test of the reality and the power of our spiritual life--than in the measure of heaven we bring down into this world's life.
