“I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
There are two ways in which all of us work, and two classes of results which flow from our lives. There are things we do purposely – that we deliberately plan to do. We take pains to do them. We spend long years oftentimes in fitting ourselves to do them. They cost us thought and care. We travel many miles, perchance, to perform them. They are the things we live to do.
Then there are other things we do that have formed no part of our plan. We did not set out in the morning to accomplish them. They are unplanned, unpurposed things, not premeditated or prearranged. They are wayside ministries. They are the little things we do between the greater things. They are the seeds we drop by chance from our hand in the path as we go out to the broad field to sow. They are the minor kindnesses and courtesies that fill up the interstices of our busy days. They are the little flowers and lowly plants that grow in the shade of the majestic trees or hidden away like violets under the taller plants and shrubs. They are the smaller opportunities of usefulness which open to us as we carry our great responsibilities. They are the things of which we take no note, and perhaps retain no memory – mere touches given as we hasten by, words dropped as we pass along.
We set no store by this part of our life work. We do not expect to see any result from it. We pride ourselves on our great masterpieces. We point to them as the things which fitly represent us, the things in which we hope to live.
And yet oftentimes these unpurposed things are the holiest and most beautiful things we do, far outshining those which we ourselves prize so highly. I believe that when the books are opened it will be seen that the very best parts of many [peoples] lives are the parts by which they set no store and from which they expected no outcome, no fruits, while the things they took pride in and wrought with plan and pains shall prove to be of but small value. Our Lord tells us that the righteous shall be surprised in the judgment to hear of noble deeds wrought by them of which they have no knowledge or recollection. No doubt there is a wondrous amount of good done unconsciously of which the doers shall never be aware until it is disclosed in the future life.
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