The Lord calls many of us to live humble and quiet lives, lives that are lived far more in the mundane than in the spotlight. And truly, even the most exceptional of men and women still spend most of their time in obscurity, laboring in secret, carrying out their tasks far from human eyes. But this does not at all mean that our lives are wasted or that we are failing to meet God’s expectations for us. F.B. Meyer explains well in this brief excerpt from his works.
The clue to life’s aims; the philosopher’s stone which will turn everything into gold; the secret of a blessed, useful life is to be found much rather in what we are, than in what we do.
The Beatitudes with which our Lord opened the great program of Christianity all turn upon character rather than upon action, and the blessedness which He promises is to the meek, the pure in heart, the peacemaker.
The true policy of life, therefore, is to stay just where we are; to believe that to be what and where we are is God’s will for us; and to endeavor to be the noblest, sweetest, purest, strongest possible. Not to fret because the sphere is obscure; not to be jealous of the position occupied by others; not to allow the peace of the inner life to be broken by the feverish desire to be something else; but to be quiet, evincing all that nobility of disposition and character which the opportunity and occasion call for.
For men to be strong, thoughtful, considerate of women and of the weak, tender to little children, self-controlled, able to command the tides that sweep through heart and thought. For women to be pure and devout, gentle and modest, adorned with the jewels of the meek and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is of great price; and to be this constantly, in days of fog as well as of sunshine, of illness as of buoyant strength.
This surely will extract from the roughest and most toilsome path the largest amount of blessedness that this world can give.
