| Things to Live For |
Chapter 13 |
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We then confess that we have sinned; but do we realize what the full consequences of our failure may be? We are standing for Christ, and the faith of others in Christ is weakened by our faltering.
We have no adequate conception of the far reaching influence of our acts and words. We do not live for ourselves alone any single day. Our smallest deeds touch other lives, and set in motion currents of moral impression which shall roll on forever. We do not know what it may mean to Christ’s cause on the earth, and to other human souls, for us to be true and faithful any little hour. We do not know what eyes are upon us in the common life of the common days – watching us, not critically, not hoping to find some flaw in us, but with most eager desire to learn if indeed there be grace in Christ to help a soul to be faithful.
Thousands who are thus watching us will turn to Christ or turn away from Christ, according as we stand the test or do not stand it. Our victory means for them a belief in Christ’s power to help; but our defeat means the weakening, perhaps the dying, of faith and hope in them. We never know what may depend on our being faithful and firm any little hour, or what may be lost if we fail. There is never a moment when it makes no matter whether we are true or not. We need God’s help in the common days just as much as in what seem to us great days. We all need to pray very often a prayer like this:–
“God help us through the common days,
The level stretches, white with dust,
When thought is tired, and hands upraise
Their burden feebly, since they must.
In days of slowly fretting care
Then most we need the strength of prayer.”
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