Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: October 11th

OUR INSIGNIFICANT AND UNFINISHED WORK

And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour; and Solomon his son reigned in his stead. - 1 Chronicles 29:28

Joseph might have said when he lay dying: "Well! Perhaps I made a mistake after all. I should not have brought this people down here, even if I have been led hither. I do not see that I have helped them one step towards the possession of the land." Do you remember the old proverb about certain people who should not see half-finished work? All our work in this world has to be only what the physiologists call functional. God has a great scheme running on through ages. Joseph gives it a helping hand for a bit, and then somebody else takes up the running, and carries the purpose forward a little further. A great many hands are placed on the ropes that draw the car of the Ruler of the world- and one after another they get stiffened in death; but the car goes on. We should be contented to do our little bit of the work: never mind whether it is complete and smooth and rounded or not; never mind whether it can be isolated from the rest and held up, and people can say " He did that entire thing unaided." That is not the way for most of us. A great many threads go to make the piece of cloth, and a great many throws of the shuttle to weave the web. A great many bits of glass make up the mosaic pattern; and there is no reason for the red bit to pride itself on its fiery glow, or the grey bit to boast of its silvery coolness. They are all parts of the pattern, and as long as they keep their right places they complete the artist’s design. Thus, if we think of how one soweth and another reapeth, we may be content to receive half-done works from our fathers, and to hand on unfinished tasks to them that come after us. It is not a great trial of a man’s modesty, if he lives near Jesus Christ, to be content to do but a very small bit of the Master’s work.

Moses dies; Joshua catches the torch from his hand. And the reason why he catches the torch from his hand is because God said, "As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee." Therefore we have to turn away in our contemplations from the mortality that has swallowed up so much wisdom and strength, eloquence and power, which the Church or our own hearts seem so sorely to want; and, whilst we do, we have to look up to Jesus Christ, and say, " He lives! He lives! No man is indispensable for public work, or for private affection and solace, so long as there is a living Christ for us to hold by." We need that conviction for ourselves often. When life seems empty and hope dead, and nothing is able to fill the vacuity or still the pain, we have to look to the vision of the Lord sitting on the empty throne, high and lifted up, and yet very near the aching and void heart. Christ lives, and that is enough. So the separated workers in all the generations, who did their little bit of service, like the many generations of builders who laboured through centuries upon the completion of some great cathedral, will be united at the last; "and he that soweth, and he that reapeth, shall rejoice together " in the harvest which neither the sower nor the reaper had produced, but He who blessed the toils of both.