How to Make the Most of Common Work
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Dear friend,
Evidently you are a busy person. Someone says that one's value in society is measured by one's interruptions — that is, by the demands which other people make upon one for help, for service. Evidently many people make demands upon you, many claim you and the loving help which you can give. All this speaks of your own good heart.
I believe that God intrusts to his servants, the work which he knows by experience they will do faithfully. Some people are selfish and unwilling to serve others; these are not apt to get many opportunities of serving others in the true sense. But when one has proved willing to serve and give out life for others, then God is ready to give more and more, until hands and hearts are full.
Long since I learned that interruptions — what people call interruptions, the breaking into one's own schedule of needs and wants from others — are often bits of God's will which are given to us to do. For example, one makes a schedule for a day, enough to fill every moment of it — but scarcely has the day begun, when someone comes with a need, a sorrow, something that seems to demand that we must stop our regular work and turn aside. We are apt to chafe at these interruptions — but I believe that often the things which thus press in upon us, breaking into our own plans, are the most sacred things of our days.
I have no doubt that you regard your life as Christ's, to be used in whatever way he would have you to use it. Your motto is, at least in substance, "Christ, whose I am, and whom I serve." By going about from place to place among your friends, helping them in Christ's name, you bring to them the Spirit of Christ and the love of Christ, and also the helpfulness of Christ. I trust that you will have rich enjoyment in all this service, and that you will always be found helping somebody.
This reminds me of something I have read about Sir Bartle Frere. He was always serving in some way. He had been absent for quite a while in one of his African explorations, and was to return by a certain train. Lady Frere sent a servant to meet him at the station. The servant was new and never had seen Sir Bartle. He asked his mistress how he would know him. "Oh," said she, "look for a tall man helping somebody."
The servant went to the station, and when the train arrived he eagerly watched for his new master, trying to identify him by his wife's description. Soon he saw a tall man helping an old lady out of a railway carriage, and knew at once that it must be the person he sought. It is a very beautiful way to be known — one who is always helping some person. I am sure this applies to you. When I go to your country and try to find you, I shall be sure to find you trying to help somebody.
I am sure that as you turn your thought toward the higher phase of common work, all that now seems drudgery will become beautiful and radiant service. Anything that we do for Christ, if we can realize indeed that it is for him, ceases to be dreary and toilsome, and becomes a matter of joy and gladness. May God help you more and more to set Christ before you always in everything you do, and to work always for him, no matter for whom you are working directly, or what lowly and dreary work you are doing.
Did I ever tell you the story which Mrs. Preston has woven into one of her little poems? It tells of two children — an older and younger sister. The younger one was sickly, lame and helpless. When the mother died, she committed the care of this little child to her older sister, herself not much more than a child. All her time was taken up in caring for the little home and watching over this lame sister. One day she heard a sermon in which the minister urged that everyone should do something for Christ, the King.
He put it too strongly, in such a way as to leave a wrong impression on the child's mind. She began to fret because she was so occupied with the care of her little sister and the duties of the home, that she had no time to spend, not even a minute, in working for Christ. One day, when she sat beside the bed where the sick child lay — she dreamed that the King had come, and that she had told him how sorry she was that she could not do anything for him; that while her heart was full of love for him, and while she wished she might be of use — all her time was taken up with this suffering child. The King, looking into her face, said, "But the child is mine."
You see the teaching at once. The girl's whole time was taken up, absorbed even to the last particle of strength, in caring for her little sister. She thought that she was not doing anything for Christ, and only gave as her reason that all her time was taken up. But the fact that the child herself belonged to Christ, changed everything — all the beautiful service she was rendering, was done really for Christ, since the child was his, and, in caring for her, she was serving him most acceptably and beautifully. This is but another little glimpse into the same truth which I tried to show you. In caring for the children in your school, devoting yourself to them, even if your time is so occupied that you can do nothing directly for Christ in working for his Church, yet all that you do for them, is done really for him.
You must not be discouraged about your work. As I have said to you before, you are a learner, and the mistakes which you say you are still making in your work, and the imperfections which you still find in what you do, are merely incidents in the growth of your life, and in your progress toward better things.
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