UNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING.
"Let me not die before I've done for thee
My earthly work, whatever it may be.
Call me not hence, with mission unfulfilled;
Let me not leave my space of ground unfilled;
Impress this truth upon me, that not one
Can do my portion, that I leave undone."
We are all builders. We may not erect any house or temple on a city
street, for human eyes to see, but every one of us builds a fabric
which God and angels see. Life is a building. It rises slowly, day by
day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the
edifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, every
touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every
book we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonest
days, adds something to the invisible building. Sorrow, too, has its
place in preparing the stones to lie on the life-wall. All life
furnishes the material.
"Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."
There are many noble fabrics of character reared in this world. But
there are also many who build only low, mean huts, without beauty,
which will be swept away in the testing-fires of judgment. There are
many, too, whose life-work presents the spectacle of an unfinished
building. There was a beautiful plan to begin with, and the work
promised well for a little time; but after a while it was abandoned and
left standing, with walls half-way up, a useless fragment, open and
exposed, an incomplete, inglorious ruin, telling no story of past
splendor as do the ruins of some old castle or coliseum, a monument
only of folly and failure.
"There is nothing sadder," writes one, "than an incomplete ruin; one
that has never been of use; that never was what it was meant to be;
about which no pure, holy, lofty associations cling, no thoughts of
battles fought and victories won, or of defeats as glorious as
victories. God sees them where we do not. The highest tower may be
more unfinished than the lowest to him."
We must not forget the truth of this last sentence. There are, lives
which to our eyes seem only to have been begun and then abandoned,
which to God's eyes are still rising into more and more graceful
beauty. Here is one who began his life-work with all the ardor of
youth and all the enthusiasm of a consecrated spirit. For a time his
hand never tired, his energy never slackened. Friends expected great
things from him. Then his health gave way. The diligent hand lies
idle and waiting now. His enthusiasm no more drives him afield. His
work lies unfinished.
"What a pity!" men say. But wait! He has not left an unfinished
life-work as God sees it. He is resting in submission at the Master's
feet and is growing meanwhile as a Christian. The spiritual temple in
his soul is rising slowly in the silence. Every day is adding
something to the beauty of his character, as he learns the lessons of
patience, confidence, peace, joy, love. His building at the last will
be more beautiful than if he had been permitted to toil on through many
busy years, carrying out his own plans. He is fulfilling God's purpose
for his life.
We must not measure spiritual building by earthly standards. Where the
heart remains loyal and true to Christ; where the cross of suffering is
taken up cheerfully and borne sweetly; where the spirit is obedient
though the hands lie folded and the feet must be still, the temple
rises continually toward finished beauty.
Or here is one who dies in early youth. There was great promise in the
beautiful life. Affection had reared for it a noble fabric of hope.
Perhaps the beauty had begun to shine out in the face, and the hands
had begun to show their skill. Then death came and all the fair hopes
were folded away. The visions of loveliness and the dreams of noble
attainments and achievements lay like withered flowers upon the grave.
An unfinished life! friends cry in their disappointment and sorrow. So
it seems, surely, to love's eyes, from the earth-side. But so it is
not, as God's eye looks upon it. There is nothing unfinished that
fulfils the divine plan. God cuts off no young life till its earthly
work is done. Then the soul-building which began here and seemed to be
interrupted by death, was only hidden from our eyes by a thin veil,
behind which it still goes up with unbroken continuity, rising into
fairest beauty in the presence of God.
But there are abandoned life-buildings whose story tells only of shame
and failure. Many persons begin to follow Christ, and after a little
time turn away from their profession and leave only a pretentious
beginning to stand as a ruin to be laughed at by the world and to
dishonor the Master's name.
Sometimes it is discouragement that leads men to give up the work to
which they have put their hand. In one of his poems, Wordsworth tells
a pathetic story of a straggling heap of unhewn stones, and the
beginning of a sheepfold which was never finished. With his wife and
only son, old Michael, a Highland shepherd, dwelt for many years in
peace. But trouble came which made it necessary that the son should go
away to do for himself for a while. For a time good reports came from
him, and the old shepherd would go out when he had leisure and would
work on the sheepfold which he was building. By and by, however, sad
news came from Luke. In the great dissolute city he had given himself
to evil courses. Shame fell on him and he was driven to seek a
hiding-place beyond the seas. The sad tidings broke the old father's
heart. He went about as before, caring for his sheep. To the hollow
dell, too, he would repair from time to time, meaning to build at the
unfinished fold. But the neighbors in their pity noticed that he did
little work in those sad days.
"'Tis believed by all
That many and many a day he thither went
And never lifted up a single stone.
There by the sheepfold sometimes was he seen
Sitting alone, with that his faithful dog,
Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.
The length of full seven years from time to time
He at the building of his sheepfold wrought,
And left the work unfinished when he died."
Years after the shepherd was gone the remains of the unfinished fold
were still there, a sad memorial of one who began to build but did not
finish. Sorrow broke his heart and his hand slacked.
Too often noble life-buildings are abandoned in the time of sorrow, and
the hands that were quick and skilful before grief came, hang down and
do nothing more on the temple-wall. Instead, however, of giving up our
work and faltering in our diligence, we should be inspired by sorrow to
yet greater earnestness in all duty and greater fidelity in all life.
God does not want us to faint under chastening, but to go on with our
work, quickened to new earnestness by grief.
Want of faith is another cause which leads many to abandon their
life-temples unfinished. Throngs followed Christ in the earlier days
of his ministry when all seemed bright, who, when they saw the shadow
of the cross, turned back and walked no more with him. They lost their
faith in him. It is startling to read how near even our Lord's
apostles came to leaving their buildings unfinished. Had not their
faith come again after their Master arose, they would have left in this
world only sad memorials of failure instead of glorious finished
temples.
In these very days there are many who, through the losing of their
faith, are abandoning their work on the wall of the temple of Christian
discipleship, which they have begun to build. Who does not know those
who once were earnest and enthusiastic in Christian life, while there
was but little opposition, but who fainted and failed when it became
hard to confess Christ and walk with him?
Then sin, in some form, draws many a builder away from his work, to
leave it unfinished. It may be the world's fascinations that draw him
from Christ's side. It may be sinful human companionships that lure
him from loyal friendship to his Saviour. It may be riches that enter
his heart and blind his eyes to the attractions of heaven. It may be
some secret, debasing lust that gains power over him and paralyzes his
spiritual life. Many are there now, amid the world's throngs, who once
sat at the Lord's Table and were among God's people. Unfinished
buildings their lives are, towers begun with great enthusiasm and then
left to tell their sad story of failure to all who pass by. They began
to build and were not able to finish.
It is sad to think how much of this unfinished work God's angels see as
they look down upon our earth. Think of the good beginnings which
never come to anything in the end; the excellent resolutions which are
never carried out, the noble life-plans entered upon by so many young
people with ardent enthusiasm, but soon given up. Think of the
beautiful visions and fair hopes which might be made splendid
realities, but which fade out, not leaving the record of even one
sincere, earnest effort to work them into reality.
In all lines of life we see these abandoned buildings. The business
world is full of them. Men began to build, but in a little time they
were gone, leaving their work uncompleted. They set out with gladness,
but tired at length of the toil, or grew disheartened at the slow
coming of success, and abandoned their ideal when it was perhaps just
ready to be realized. Many homes present the spectacle of abandoned
dreams of love. For a time the beautiful vision shone in radiance, and
two hearts sought to make it come true, but then gave it up in despair.
So life everywhere is full of beginnings never carried out to
completion. There is not a soul-wreck on the streets, not a prisoner
serving out a sentence behind iron bars, not a debased, fallen one
anywhere, in whose soul there were not once visions of beauty, bright
hopes, holy thoughts and purposes, and high resolves--an ideal of
something lovely and noble. But alas! the visions, the hopes, the
purposes, the resolves, never grew into more than beginnings. God's
angels bend down and see a great wilderness of unfinished fabrics,
splendid possibilities unfulfilled, noble might-have-beens abandoned,
ghastly ruins now, sad memorials only of failure.
The lesson from all this is, that we should finish our work, that we
should allow nothing to draw us away from our duty, that we should
never weary in following Christ, that we should hold fast the beginning
of our confidence steadfast unto the end. We should not falter under
any burden, in the face of any danger, before any demand of cost and
sacrifice. No discouragement, no sorrow, no worldly attraction, no
hardship, should weaken for one moment our determination to be faithful
unto death. No one who has begun to build for Christ should leave an
unfinished, abandoned life-work to grieve the heart of the Master and
to be sneered at as a reproach to the name he bears.
Yet we must remember, lest we be discouraged, that only in a relative,
human sense can any life-building be made altogether complete. Our
best work is marred and imperfect. It is only when we are in Christ,
and are co-workers with him, that anything we do can ever be made
perfect and beautiful. But the weakest, and the humblest, who are
simply faithful, will stand at last complete in him. Even the merest
fragment of life, as it appears in men's eyes, if it be truly in
Christ, and filled with his love and with his Spirit, will appear
finished, when presented before the divine Presence. To do God's will,
whatever that may be, to fill out his plan, is to be complete in
Christ, though the stay on earth be but for a day, and though the work
done fulfil no great human plan, and leave no brilliant record among
men.
"Thy work unfinished! Do not fear
Though at his coming may be found
The stone unset.
Yet, for thy faith, beyond the skies
Thine own shall be the longed-for prize.
He knoweth best who calls from labor now
To rest, to build no more."