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‘I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.’
Joh_17:4
I. What, then, is our work?—Undoubtedly it has many parts, and the details are peculiar to each, but, speaking broadly, we may distinguish certain universal elements in it.
(a) First, we may say that our work here is the formation of our character.
(b) We have also each our share in the making of others; and it is perhaps true that while we must keep a clear eye open to our besetting faults, we cure them best in the course of that other work which is not so self-conscious. Such work for others we all have.
(c) Again, there is that work by which we take our place in the commonwealth. This, too, is from God, for ‘the powers that be are ordained of God,’ and this too must be for God.
II. But all work that is real work, so far as it bears on the lives of men, is work in accordance with the Divine will, and brings its blessings.—Even work that may seem but play—the work of amusing the nation—which absorbs at the present day so much skill, if that also is sound in its influence, is work for God.
III. What are the helps and the hindrances?
(a) First, time. Time is both a help and a hindrance. When we are young it stretches before us so endlessly long that there seems nothing that may not be done and won in such length of days; and yet, just because it seems so endless, it slips away without being used, ‘like water that runneth apace.’
(b) And the second help God gives us, which also, if we please, we may convert into a hindrance, is what in one word we call our circumstances, our health or sickness, our riches or poverty, our position in society, our chances. The whole power of circumstances to hinder has been compressed into that one sentence of the Book of Proverbs: ‘The fool saith, There is a lion in the path.’ But experience teaches us that what we in our weakness call adverse circumstances are only God’s medicines to fashion a strong heart in us. We know that the moral order of the world is so contrived that out of danger is begotten courage, and out of difficulty strength and patience, and out of pain fortitude and sympathy, and out of strife victory, and at the last, out of death itself—mourn over it as we may when it happens to others—life, new and uncircumscribed and everlasting.
—
Rev. Canon Beeching.
Illustrations(1) ‘Some of you may recall the story of the monk told by Anatole France, who, before he entered religion, had been an acrobat, and used to shut himself up in the church to tumble before the high altar; his feats of skill being the one thing of his own he had to offer. One feels in reading it that although, no doubt, God accepted his offering, yet it had been true work for God if he had used his talent for the recreation of his brethren.’
(2) ‘There is a story in Herodotus of an Egyptian king to whom it was foretold that he had but five years to live, and he scornfully replied to the oracle of his envious god that he could make it ten by turning night into day. If that is a fable, it has a moral. But there is a true story told of a great French statesman who, observing that his family had generally died before fifty, made up his mind when he came of age that he must begin at once if he was to accomplish any work for the good of his country. So must each Christian say, “Oh, gentlemen, the time of life is short!” ’