#193 - Submission

Submission

  “For me, I feel that nothing can be easier than to fulfill the duty which lies before me in life,” said P-, a young Christian, in a college prayer meeting. “I have given up my plans for entering into business. I shall devote my life to preaching the gospel. I have divided the day into periods. So many hours for prayer, so many for biblical study, so many for work and necessary recreation. I shall make it an absolute rule to speak with kind entreaties to evil-doers, never to allow my temper to be disturbed, and to occupy myself wholly in works of kindness and charity. I have begun this carefully-ordered life, and find it easy and full of sweetness.”
  The next day P- received a telegram that his father was dying. He hastened home, to find him dead and insolvent. He left the care of his helpless brothers and sisters on P-. He was forced to go to work as a bookkeeper, and to postpone his preparation for the ministry. His life for two years was a hard one; seventeen hours of labor, and an unhappy, quarrelsome family at home. At the end of that time an accident disabled him for months. He was confined to bed, suffering great pain at intervals, and surrounded by the direst poverty, which he could do nothing to relieve. He grew bitter and skeptical.
  “Can there be a just God?” he said to a friend, “My purposes were good. He has thwarted them all. I might have been a pillar in God's house. He has left me a useless lump of clay by the wayside.”
  “He gave the opportunity to preach submission and patience as you could have done in no pulpit,” was the answer. “You are a lump of clay and he the potter. It does not matter whether you are made into a rare porcelain vessel or an earthen one, provided you hold his purity and love and give it to the world.”
  The rebuke had its effect. Years afterwards P- gained his wish and became a Christian minister. He declared that at no time of his life was he brought so near to Go din humility and love as during the years when he was debarred from openly proclaiming his name.
  There are few of us who do not at some time in our lives complain that God has retrained and thrust us into the background when we would have rendered him service. The roots of the tree, could they reason, would doubtless rebel when they are buried in the dark, damp earth, but out if it they gather the life and sweetness for the flower and fruit. Obedience is true religious service, and experience is often the best scholarship of life.--Youths Companion.

Illustrative Anecdotes for Preachers, Sunday School Teachers, and the Family Circle. Henry M. Tyndall. 1925. #193 (Page 101).