Just so is it with our lives. The transaction of, so to speak, making them over to God is definite and complete. But then begins the practical development of consecration. And here He leads on 'softly, according as the children be able to endure.' I do not suppose any one sees anything like all that it involves at the outset. We have not a notion what an amount of waste of power there has been in our lives; we never measured out the odd corners and the undrained bits, and it never occurred to us what good fruit might be grown in our straggling hedgerows, nor how the shade of our trees has been keeping the sun from the scanty crops. And so, season by season, we shall be sometimes not a little startled, yet always very glad, as we find that bit by bit the Master shows how much more may be made of our ground, how much more He is able to make of it than we did; and we shall be willing to work under Him and do exactly what He points out, even if it comes to cutting down a shady tree, or clearing out a ditch full of pretty weeds and wild-flowers. As the seasons pass on, it will seem as if there was always more and more to be done; the very fact that He is constantly showing us something more to be done in it, proving that it is really His ground. Only let Him _have_ the ground, no matter how poor or overgrown the soil may be, and then 'He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.' Yes, even _our_ 'desert'! And then we shall sing, 'My beloved has gone down into _His_ garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies.' Made for Thyself, O God! Made for Thy love, Thy service, Thy delight; Made to show forth Thy wisdom, grace, and might; Made for Thy praise, whom veiled archangels laud: Oh, strange and glorious thought, that we may be A joy to Thee! Yet the heart turns away From this grand destiny of bliss, and deems 'Twas made for its poor self, for passing dreams, Chasing illusions melting day by day, Till for ourselves we read on this world's best, 'This is not rest!' CHAPTER II. Our Moments kept for Jesus. _'Keep my moments and my days;_ _Let them flow in ceaseless praise.'_ It may be a little help to writer and reader if we consider some of the practical details of the life which we desire to have 'kept for Jesus' in the order of the little hymn at the beginning of this book, with the one word 'take' changed to 'keep.' So we will take a couplet for each chapter. The first point that naturally comes up is that which is almost synonymous with life--our time. And this brings us at once face to face with one of our past difficulties, and its probable cause.