We all like to feel that what we are doing counts for something, that it
is really worth while. We like to see practical results. We know that much
labor is lost in the world, and we do not want ours to be lost. The
ordinary things of life seem to amount to so little. They are not
spectacular; no one pays very much attention to them; and we naturally
feel that when we do something, we want it to be something that people can
see and that they will think is worth while, and something that we
ourselves can feel is worth while. Some think: “If I could just preach, I
shouldn’t mind working for the Lord. But, oh! I can do so little—nothing
worth while at all, nothing worth the effort. What can my feeble efforts
accomplish, anyway?”
Others think that if they could go to a foreign land and work among the
heathen, draw people to Christ there, send back home great reports of what
they have accomplished, have their names published in the paper, and have
people talking about them, then that would be worth while. But since they
are only ordinary people and can do only ordinary things, it seems to them
that it hardly pays to try. They will just follow the line of least
resistance and do things the easiest way. Of course they want to do what
they can for God, but they want to do something really worth while.
And now, reader, what is really worth while in life? Is it only those
things that make a great show? is it only those things that the world
counts great? A sister said to me recently in a letter, “I used to think
that I could do nothing worth while, but I have found that just simply
living salvation before people is a great work.” Now, that sister has
learned a wonderful lesson. She has found a truth so great that most
people do not recognize it as truth when they do find it. It is one of
those truths that have the peculiarity of seeming small and insignificant
though they are the very fundamentals of truth.
Just simply living salvation before people—yes, that is what counts, and
it counts more than anything else. That is one of the very greatest things
that an individual has ever done in this world. Talk is cheap, and many
people can talk all day and say scarcely anything either. Some people can
sway great crowds by their eloquence, they can accomplish wonderful
things, but still they can not live salvation, or, at least, they do not.
There is no power so great in this world as the simple power of a holy,
quiet life. The sister mentioned can never hope to do great things as
other people might count them. She is in frail health; she is isolated
from other saints and can not attend meetings as can many others; she has
not the ability to preach or to do anything very great, as greatness is
usually reckoned; but she has learned the great fact that she is not shut
out from doing a grand work.
If all God’s people could learn this lesson—if they could learn that it
really counts just simply to live right, just simply to be an ordinary
every-day Christian; if they could once get that thoroughly fixed in their
minds and hearts—it would glorify their lives, it would exalt the common
service, it would shed a halo over their lives, and they would not feel
discouraged.
When Moses was at Pharaoh’s court, I suppose he thought that he was doing
something really worth while. He amounted to something there. But when the
Lord let him be driven, or rather frightened, away from that court and he
went out into the wilderness, I suppose he thought his occupation there
was hardly worth while. Why, what was he doing, anyway? Just taking care
of the sheep, leading them out in the morning to the pasture, bringing
them back to the fold at night, seven days in the week—just doing this and
nothing more. I suppose it did not look very big to Moses, but it did to
God. God thought it worth so much that he kept him at that work for forty
years. Then Moses, at the age of eighty, when it looked as if he were
about done with this world, was called to go to do something for the Lord.
That forty years in the wilderness counted now. It had given him
experience that helped to qualify him for the work to which God had called
him. He came out of there worth while because he had done something worth
while in those years. He had learned about God—oh, so many things he had
learned! and now he was ready to put that knowledge into practise.
Sometimes we have wilderness periods in our lives, when God lets us be
shut up in a corner, as it were, and do the little things that do not seem
to count. But they count on us if they do not count anywhere else. There
is one thing—and just one—that stands out above all other things in the
human life, and that is faithfulness. No matter what our life may be, nor
where we may be, nor what is our situation, if we are just faithful it is
sure to count, and to count a great deal. That is one thing that you can
do: you can be faithful to the Lord. You can do what he wants you to do.
You can live pure, holy, undefiled, and keep shining every day, no matter
what the circumstances may be. Just remember to keep shining. That is the
thing that counts. Keep living clean and as God wants you to live. If you
do this, he will know where he can find somebody who is faithful when he
wants something else done. But ever keep this before you: there is no
greater nor more necessary work in the world than putting the truth of God
into visible form in a pure and quiet life.