When we finish a stage in our life and look back upon it, every thought and word and act is there in its place, just as we left it. All is fixed, steadfast, irrevocable, and as one has said: “stereotyped for ever on the plates of eternity.” At the Judgment Seat of Christ the bygone days will all come back, one by one, in order as they went, to meet us again in the presence of our Lord. What shall His judgment be? How much shall remain as “gold, silver, precious stones,” after He has tested all? (1 Cor. 3:10-17). We cannot recall the past, for it has gone far beyond our reach; but the present is yet in our hands to make it what we will.
Everything passes on without a pause. Time is like a ship which never anchors. Every day brings its work, its opportunities, its responsibilities. What are we doing? Time runs through our hands as water through a pipe. It pauses not till it has run out, and if we stand by unconcerned, making no effort to arrest the flowing stream, we shall not realise our opportunities and duties till they have passed away for ever.
We cannot accomplish all we should like to. We cannot sow every field we see, but we can drop a few seeds by the way as we pass along in fellowship with the Great Sower. There is no seed so small that does not propagate and multiply itself. The bare grain appears veritable weakness as our hand drops it into the ground, but a day comes when we may joyfully gather the waving corn, it may be thirty, sixty or a hundredfold (Mark 4:8). Though there may appear nothing to mark our life as great, yet there may be among-the seeds in our basket one that when sown will become a large tree, under whose shadow many shall find rest. Despise not the day of small things (Zech. 4:10). Do your little, and do it well. Opportunities may appear small and trivial in themselves, but who can say what the issues shall be; and, remember, the same opportunity will never return. We shall not pass this way again.
It is a law of nature, that things leave some mark behind them. Leave a mark we must. “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself “(Rom. 14:7). If we felt the greatness of life, and its possible issues, and the inexpressible value of the things which fill its brief and narrow span, it would tinge every thought, word and act, with the conviction of what must be. Let us seek that Divine grace which shall make us blessings to those who come after, marks that will secure the Lord’s “well done” in the Coming Day, when He recalls that which is past.
“God Himself is ever giving;
Loving is the truest living;
Letting go is twice possessing.”