| Things to Live For |
Chapter 22 |
Page 5 |
But the teaching is that the first thing must always be our duty – that to which God calls us. To love one’s life over well is to care more for one’s own safety, comfort, and ease than for ding what God gives one to do. To have one’s life, is to hold ease, personal pleasure, safety, comfort, as of no consequence, when the doing of God’s will, one’s duty, is concerned. Jesus hated his life when he gave it up to suffering, shame, and death rather than fail in doing his Father’s will. So must we all always hold our life if we would worthily follow Christ. The first thing must ever be our duty. We must never count the cost nor think of the danger. The duty of love must be done, though in doing it we empty out our whole life for our friend.
“If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And counting, find
One self denying act, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went,
Then you may count that hour well spent.
“But if, through all the livelong day,
You’ve cheered no heart by yea or nay;
If, through it all,
You’ve nothing done, which you can trace,
That brought the sunshine to one face;
No act most small
That helped some soul, and nothing cost,
Then count that day as worse than lost.”
We need never fear that the losing of life in service of love, in Christ’s name, is losing indeed. It is saving that is losing. It is he who keeps his life from duties involving suffering and sacrifice that is the real loser. He who gives out his life in doing God’s will shall find it again. He who sows his life in the furrows of human need shall reap a harvest of blessing. As Whittier sings:–
“Wherever through the ages rise
The altars of self sacrifice,
Where love its arms has opened wide,
Or man for man has calmly die,
I see the same white wings outspread
That hovered o’er the Master’s head.”
Page 5
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