Making the Most of LifeMiller, J. R. (James Russell)
Philosophy
Making the Most of Life
Miller, J. R. (James Russell)
Christian life
We are all builders. We may not erect any house or temple on a city
street, for human eyes to see, but every one of us builds a fabric
which God and angels see. Life is a building. It rises slowly, day by
day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the
edifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, every
touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every
book we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonest
days, adds something to the invisible building. Sorrow, too, has its
place in preparing the stones to lie on the life-wall. All life
furnishes the material.
"Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."
There are many noble fabrics of character reared in this world. But
there are also many who build only low, mean huts, without beauty,
which will be swept away in the testing-fires of judgment. There are
many, too, whose life-work presents the spectacle of an unfinished
building. There was a beautiful plan to begin with, and the work
promised well for a little time; but after a while it was abandoned and
left standing, with walls half-way up, a useless fragment, open and
exposed, an incomplete, inglorious ruin, telling no story of past
splendor as do the ruins of some old castle or coliseum, a monument
only of folly and failure.
"There is nothing sadder," writes one, "than an incomplete ruin; one
that has never been of use; that never was what it was meant to be;
about which no pure, holy, lofty associations cling, no thoughts of
battles fought and victories won, or of defeats as glorious as
victories. God sees them where we do not. The highest tower may be
more unfinished than the lowest to him."
We must not forget the truth of this last sentence. There are, lives
which to our eyes seem only to have been begun and then abandoned,
which to God's eyes are still rising into more and more graceful
beauty. Here is one who began his life-work with all the ardor of
youth and all the enthusiasm of a consecrated spirit. For a time his
hand never tired, his energy never slackened. Friends expected great
things from him. Then his health gave way. The diligent hand lies
idle and waiting now. His enthusiasm no more drives him afield. His
work lies unfinished.
"What a pity!" men say. But wait! He has not left an unfinished
life-work as God sees it. He is resting in submission at the Master's
feet and is growing meanwhile as a Christian. The spiritual temple in
his soul is rising slowly in the silence. Every day is adding
something to the beauty of his character, as he learns the lessons of
patience, confidence, peace, joy, love. His building at the last will
be more beautiful than if he had been permitted to toil on through many
busy years, carrying out his own plans. He is fulfilling God's purpose
for his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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