| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 13 |
Page 7 |
The only true way to live, therefore, is one day at a time. This means that we should give all or strength to the work of the present day, that we should finish each day’s tasks by nightfall, leaving nothing undone at setting of the sun that we ought to have done that day. Then, when a new morning dawns, we should accept its duties, the bit of God’s will it unrolls for us, and do everything well that is given us to do. We may be assured, too, that there is something for each moment, and that if we waste any portion of our day we shall not make it complete. We should bring all the energy and all the skill of mind, heart, and hand to our duty as we take it up, and do nothing carelessly or negligently. Then we can lay our day back into God’s hand at nightfall with confidence, saying, “Father, I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do today.”
Robert Falconer’s creed gathers into its four articles a very clear summary of our Lord’s teaching concerning the whole duty of man: “First that a man’s business is to do the will of God. Second, That God takes upon Himself the care of the man. Third, Therefore, that a man must never be afraid of anything. Fourth, and so be left free to love God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself.”
So we should never be anxious about either yesterday or tomorrow. Yesterday is gone, and we can never get it back to change anything in it. It is idle, therefore, to waste a moment of time or a particle of strength fretting over it. Tomorrow is not yet ours, and we should not touch its life until it becomes our today. God means us to put our undivided energy into the doing of the present day’s work. If we do this, we shall have quite enough to keep our heart and our hands full from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.
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