Daily Devotionals

Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time

Devotional: December 14th

“I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.”

One of the great tragedies of our existence is to see men and women living wasted lives. Man, after all, was made in the image and likeness of God. He was destined for a throne, not for a bar stool. He was created to be a representative of God, not a slave of sin. In answer to the question, “What is the chief end of man?,” the Shorter Catechism reminds us that “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” If we miss that, we miss everything.

J. H. Jowett weeps as he realizes that the course of many people through the years is “not so much the transit of a man as the passage of an amoeba.” He grieves to see men who have drivelled down to be nothing more than “minor officials in transient enterprises.” He notes with pathos the epitaph of one who was “born a man and died a grocer.”

F. W. H. Myers gazes out over humanity and writes:

Only like souls I see the folk there under,

Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings,

Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder,

Sadly contented in a show of things.

When Watchman Nee was a young man, he was moved to see “human creative gift squandered for an avaricious employer… In one of the shops of the old city’s lacquer street an anonymous craftsman had already spent six years on three hardwood leaves of a four-leaf screen, carving reliefs of flowers in the natural wood, white against the black lacquered surface. For this he was paid eighty cents a day, ‘rain, shine, holidays, or revolution,’ as the shop owner put it, plus his rice and vegetables and a plank to sleep on. Having once acquired skill for this work, he might make only two such screens before eyes and nerves failed and he was flung out with the beggars.”

The tragedy of life today is that men fail to appreciate their high calling. They go through life hugging the subordinate. They creep instead of fly. As someone has said, they rake around in a muck heap, not noticing the angel above them who is offering them a crown. Their time is spent making a living instead of making a life.

Many today are concerned over the spoiling of natural resources but they never think of the greater loss of human resources. Many campaign to save endangered species of birds, animals and fishes, but they can look on people wasting their lives and not be moved. One human life is worth more than the whole world. To fritter away that life is the unutterable tragedy. One woman said, “I am seventy, and I have done nothing with my life.” What could be more tragic?