'This one thing I do,' says the Apostle, 'I press toward the mark.' That
aim is the one which God has in view in all circumstances and
arrangements. Therefore, obviously, it is one which may be pursued in
all of these, and may be sought whatsoever we are doing. All
occupations of life except only sin are consistent with this highest
aim. It needs not that we should seek any remote or cloistered form of
life, nor sheer off any legitimate and common interests and occupations,
but in them all we may be seeking for the one thing, the moulding of our
characters into the shapes that are pleasing to Him. 'One thing have I
desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life'; wheresoever the outward days
of my life may be passed. Whatsoever we are doing in business, in shop,
at a study table, in the kitchen, in the nursery, by the road, in the
house, we may still have the supreme aim in view, that from all
occupations there may come growth in character and in likeness to Jesus
Christ.
Only, to keep this supreme aim clear there will require far more
frequent and resolute effort of what the old mystics used to call
'recollection' than we are accustomed to put forth. It is hard, amidst
the din of business, and whilst yielding to other lower, legitimate
impulses and motives, to set this supreme one high above them all. But
it is possible if only we will do two things: keep ourselves close to
God, and be prepared to surrender much, laying our own wills, our own
fancies, purposes, eager hopes and plans in His hands, and asking Him to
help us, that we may never lose sight of the harbour light because of
any tossing waves that rise between us and it, nor may ever be so
swallowed up in ends, which are only means after all, as to lose sight
of the only end which is an end in itself. But for the attainment of
this aim in any measure, the concentration of all our powers upon it is
absolutely needful. If you want to bore a hole you take a sharp point;
you can do nothing with a blunt one. Every flight of wild ducks in the
sky will tell you the form that is most likely to secure the maximum of
motion with the minimum of effort. The wedge is that which pierces
through all the loosely-compacted textures against which it is pressed.
The Roman strategy forced the way of the legion through the
loose-ordered ranks of barbarian foes by arraying it in that wedge-like
form. So we, if we are to advance, must gather ourselves together and
put a point upon our lives by compaction and concentration of effort and
energy on the one purpose. The conquering word is, 'This one thing I
do.' The difference between the amateur and the artist is that the one
pursues an art at intervals by spurts, as a _parergon_--a thing that is
done in the intervals of other occupations--and that the other makes it
his life's business. There are a great many amateur Christians amongst
us, who pursue the Christian life by spurts and starts. If you want to
be a Christian after God's pattern--and unless you are you are scarcely
a Christian at all--you have to make it your business, to give the same
attention, the same concentration, the same unwavering energy to it
which you do to your trade. The man of one book, the man of one idea,
the man of one aim is the formidable and the successful man. People will
call you a fanatic; never mind. Better be a fanatic and get what you aim
at, which is the highest thing, than be so broad that, like a stream
spreading itself out over miles of mud, there is no scour in it
anywhere, no current, and therefore stagnation and death. Gather
yourselves together, and amidst all the side issues and nearer aims keep
this in view as the aim to which all are to be subservient--that,
'whether I eat or drink, or whatsoever I do, I may do all to the glory
of God.' Let sorrow and joy, and trade and profession, and study and
business, and house and wife and children, and all home joys, be the
means by which you may become like the Master who has died for this end,
that we may become partakers of His holiness.