| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 11 |
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You are a young person, discontented, unhappy, no knowing what to do with your life. You did not feel like going to church, so you were not there. That day the preacher spoke of life’s meaning and purpose – every life a plan of God – and showed with unusual plainness and clearness how to live so as to fulfill the divine plan for it. He answered the very question your heart was asking. But you were not at the service, and you missed the lesson which might have changed the course of all your after life.
You were greatly discouraged because of the hardness of the way. The week had been a difficult one, things had gone wrong, you had not done well in business, and there had been tangles and misunderstandings in your friendships. Saturday you were sick at heart. Sunday you were in gloomy mood and did not attend church. The service was an especially uplifting one, telling of God’s love, full of cheer, encouragement, and impulses to joy. If you had been present, you would have been greatly helped by the services, the prayers, the Scriptures, the hymns, the sermon – toward gladness and victoriousness; you would have lost your discouragement in new spiritual courage, your weariness in magnificent enthusiasm. Others who were present that morning carried away with them thoughts and inspirations which made all the week glad. But you, hiding away in your self pity or your disheartenment, missed the message and the blessing, the kindling of hope and joy, and went into another week of weary struggle and toil unhelped.
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