By J.R. Miller
There is a great deal more in life's common task-work, than we dream. We think of it oftentimes as the dreariest kind of drudgery. Many a man never learns to go to his daily toil with hearty enthusiasm. Many a woman never goes through her household duties but with a weary heart and a feeling of constraint. It is this dullness of life's common tasks--which makes them seem so hard. If people loved them and took them up with delight, they would be light and easy, for love makes anything easy. It is the dreariness of this unending plod and grind which wears out so many lives--not the real burden of it. People are fretted and become discontented, as they must go every day over and over the same old routine. It seems so tedious. Nothing comes of it. It is weaving ever only to have the web un-woven.
"O trifling tasks so often done,
Yet ever to be done anew!
O cares that come with every sun,
Morn after morn the long years through!
We shrink beneath their paltry sway-
The irksome calls of every day.
The restless sense of wasted power,
The tiresome round of little things,
Are hard to bear, as hour by hour,
Its futile repetition brings;
Who shall evade, or who delay,
The small demands of every day?"
But is there no better way to look at all this dreary work? Is there no heavenly ray which may illumine it? Is it merely futile repetition? Does nothing come out of it all? Is it in any sense working for Christ? If we will answer these questions in the light of New Testament teaching, we shall see that there is a sense in which "drudgery" is indeed "divine." All this task-work our Father sets for us. This alone will give it grandeur, if we but realize it.
Besides, this very task-work which to many of us seems so dreary--is one of God's ways of teaching us some of the greatest lessons of life. We are not in this world merely to do the pieces of work, large or small, which are given to our hand. We are here to grow in strength and beauty of character. And it is not hard to see how this growth may go on continually amid life's daily toils and cares. If we are diligent, careful, faithful, prompt, accurate, energetic, in the doing of the thousand little things of common life--we are building these qualities meanwhile into our soul's fabric. Thus we are ever learning by doing. There is an unseen spiritual building arising within us continually as we plod on in our unending tasks. Negligence in common duties--mars our character. Faithfulness in all work--builds beauty into the soul.
If we remember this as we go about our dull task-work, it will grow bright under our hand. Every little fragment of it will grow bright under our hand. Every little fragment of it will appear as a lesson, which we shall add a new touch to the spiritual temple we are building. There is a blessing in the doing of even the smallest duty. It lifts us a little nearer to God.
This lesson has a very wide application. Our Lord said that he who wills to do the will of God, would know of the teaching. Doing is therefore a great deal more important in life, than we sometimes think. In times past there has been a tendency to exalt believing, not unduly, for believing is always important--but to the disparagement of doing. But there can be no noble believing, without noble doing. Character is built up by doing. We can get to know more of our Father's will--only by doing what we already know.
We can never really understand the Bible--merely by studying it. It will not reveal itself to us--until we begin to obey what it teaches. He who seeks to obey it--shall know it. Many people have the impression that there is something secret and mysterious about the words of the Scriptures. But the mystery vanishes, if they accept the divine teachings, and begin to fashion their lives according to them. Many Christians will readily recall how dim and obscure faith in Jesus Christ seemed to them before they believed, when they were trying to find the way--and then how simple and clear it appeared after they had begun to follow the Savior.
The same principle is found in other kinds of learning besides that of spiritual truth. A pupil wants to acquire music. He may get books and a teacher and learn all the principles. But he can never become a musician, except by practice. Likewise, one will never become an artist merely by studying the rules and principles of art--he must take their brush and paint as he studies.
It is the same with the Bible. You read a command with a promise annexed. You say, "I cannot see how if I do so and so--that this shall be the result." While this is your attitude, the truth will not become plain to you. But if you accept the teaching as a revealing of a fragment of God's will for you, and begin to do it, light will break from it. As you obey the teaching, you shall know.
Duties seem hard. We think we cannot do them all. The door appears shut before us, preventing our progress. But when we quietly and in child-like faith move forward--the door opens. The Israelites lay in their camp on the eastern side of the Jordan River. The command came to cross over. They struck their tents and formed their columns, ready to march. But still the river flowed on, with full floods, with no sign of abatement. They began to move--the advance of the multitude is now only a few steps from the brink. Still the muddy water rushes on. Shall they turn back? Or shall they stand there on the edge of the river and wait for it to pause in its flowing to let them pass through? That is what many people do on the margin of life's rivers.
But no! they obeyed God's will, and the advance guard of priests, bearing the sacred symbol of God's presence, moved quietly on as though there were no river before them. The moment their feet touched the water's edge--the flood was cut off above, and the channel was emptied. This old fragment of history has its living lesson. If we will to do God's will we shall find the way open for our feet. The path of duty is never really an obstructed path.
Daily life is full of points where this lesson may find application. One bright morning you give yourself anew of Christ. You resolve to do his will all the day long. You will find the will of God not in your Bible only, as you read its words--but in many circumstances and experiences; for remember you are learning by practice, not merely by theory. Something goes wrong at breakfast. Someone says a sharp word, needless of course, thoughtless perhaps, even crude it may be. It hurts, and the color flies to your face, the flash of anger to your eye, and the unadvised word to the very door of your lips. But there is a still, small voice, which reminds you that you have willed to do God's will to day. It is his will that you should keep your heart loving and sweet--and not be provoked. Do it and you will learn the sweet meaning throughout the day, in the blessing which will come to you.
Many of us find our plans broken into continually by what we are apt to call the accidents of life. The mothers in the home are interrupted all day and kept back in their work by their children who clamor for attention, for nursing, for care. Busy men meet constant hindrances, which break into their hours and interfere with their plans. Who does not many a time--have his day's beautiful schedule disarranged by little things which come in, without announcement, and claim his thought, his time, and his strength?
Sometimes we may be disposed to chafe a little at what seems to be interferences with the program we have mapped out for ourselves in the morning. But we should remember that we are learning by practice. We promised to do God's will all day, and these things are God's will for us. We had left no place for doing things for God, and he had to force them into our well-ordered schedule.
This is the only way God can get some of us to do anything for him. We have no time for his special work. We leave no little gaps in our schedule in which to do little errands for him. We crowd our hours so full of things for ourselves that we have not a moment left for ministries for Christ. The only way he can get us to do these things is to press them right into the midst of our scheduled hours.
Here is the lesson: These things that we call "interruptions" are little fragments of God's will breaking into the midst of the plans, which we had willed for our own pleasure or profit. We have set ourselves for the day to do his will, and we must not turn any of these interruptions away. He knows what he wants us to do. Supposing that we are tired, or that our own work is waiting, or that we are thwarted of our goal--dare we turn away from the service which God is asking of us--some little ministry to a child, some comfort to a sorrowing one, some gentle touch to a life that will carry the blessing for days, some showing of the path to a bewildered soul that knocks at our door asking the way, some lightening of the burden for one bowed down--dare we, would we--turn away what God has sent us--these tasks that angels would leap to do--that we may keep on with our own poor little earthly tasks?
We must never forget, at least, that we are learning by doing God's will, and that God's will does not all come to us out of a written Bible. Some of it comes fresh from God's own lips in our life's circumstances. In whatever way it may come, we are to do it, and in doing it we will find a blessing. Hard tasks and duties are like nuts--they are rough and unsightly, and the shell is not easy to break--but when it is broken, we find it full of rich meat.
Once Jesus, tired and hungry, sat down by an old well to rest, while his disciples went to the village to buy food. He was too weary to go with them; but while he sat there exhausted, resting, a woman came to draw water. Weary as he was, he treated her with compassionate interest, entering into conversation with her, leading to spiritual themes, and saving her from her own sinful life.
That fragment of ministry--was his Father's will for that hour. To be sure it broke into his rest--but he forgot his weariness in blessing a sad, lost life. Then when the disciples came with the food--he was no longer hungry. They could not understand it. They thought someone must have brought him bread in their absence--but he said in explanation, and the words reveal a blessed secret of the spiritual life, "I have food to eat--that you know not of ... my food is to do the will of him who sent me." Taking up the duty that came to him, he found in doing of it--real food for his life. It is always so. Do the duty God sends--do it gladly, lovingly--and you will find a blessing wrapped up in it. We get the goodness of divine love--by doing the divine will.
Many people complain that they cannot be sure of the right path in life. They are continually coming to points where duty is uncertain. The way before them is dark, even close up to their feet. The horizon seems to shut down like a heavy curtain, or a thick wall, right before them.
But here, again, this principle applies: "If any man wills to do his will--he shall know." We can learn the path of duty--only by walking in it. There is no promise of anything more than this. The word of God is a lamp unto our feet; not a sun to light a hemisphere--but a lamp or a lantern to carry in our hand, to give light unto our feet, to show us just one little step at a time. If we move on, taking the step that lies fully in the light, we carry the light forward too, and it then shows us another step. That is, we learn to know the road by walking in it. If we will not take the one step that is made clear, we cannot know the part of the way that is hidden in the shadow. But doing the duty that lies nearest--will ever bring us to the next duty. Doing we shall know.
These are but little fragments of a great lesson, which has very wide-reaching applications. We may get at least the heart of it, which is, that, doing our duty as it is made clear to us, we shall learn. Do the little of God's will you now perceive--and he will reveal more and more of it to you. Instead of wondering what mystery the long, unopened future holds for you--take the task or the ministry of the moment now in sight--and do that!
God's will is an angel, bearing in his hand a little lamp to light you step by step on your heavenward way, at last bringing you to the door of home. If there are perplexities before you, simply begin to do your duty--the little of it that is clear--and the perplexities will vanish. If the task set for you seems impossible, still begin the doing of it. It would not be a duty and be really impossible. God never requires anything he does not intend to help us to do. The giving of a duty always implies strength to do it. In due time the mountain will yield to your faithful strokes. You will learn by doing. Life will brighten as you go on.
