| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 16 |
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We want to give our whole year to God, but we can do this only by giving him the days one by one as we begin them. An English clergyman says that one of the most influential memories he cherishes of his father is that every morning, as he went out from his home to his work, he would say solemnly in the presence of his family, “I go forth this day in the name of the Lord.” God breaks up our life into days to make it easier for us. We could not carry at one load the burden of a whole year – we should break under it – so he gives us only a day at a time. Anybody ought to be able to get through a single day, whatever its duty, its care, or its suffering. The trouble too often is that we look at a whole year at one glimpse, and it dismays us to think that we have all its accumulated tasks and duties to do. We forget that we have only one thing to do for any minute, and we can easily do that.
“One step, and then another,
And the longest walk is ended;
One stitch, and then another,
And the longest rent is mended;
One brick upon another,
And the highest wall is made;
One flake upon another,
And the deepest snow is laid.
“Then do not look disheartened
On the work you have to do,
And say that such a mighty task
You never can get through;
But just endeavour, day by day,
Another point to gain,
And soon the mountain which you feared
Will prove to be a plain.”
One of the secrets of a beautiful life is found in this simple rule – living day by day. We can go through one little day with God, whatever its path may be. When we rise in the morning we may give ourselves to him just for the day. We do not know what it will have for us – joy or sorrow, ease or hardship; but no matter; what God gives or sends we must accept and do sweetly, faithfully, the very best we can. The day may have interruptions, and our own plans may have to be set aside. But such interruptions are only bits of God’s will set into our schedule in place of our own thoughts of duty. If we are going through the day with God, we need never trouble about getting all our self imposed tasks finished, if only we have done God’s will each hour. What we could not do was not ours to do, that day at least. What of our own planning was set aside by God’s plan, we need not fret over, for God’s allotment is better than ours.
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