Sorrow seems to destroy the life of a child of God. Its rude share ploughs again and again through it, making many a deep furrow, gashing its beauty. But afterward a harvest of blessing and good grows up out of the crushed and broken life. That is what God intends always in trial and sorrow.
Let us have the ploughman's faith, and we shall not faint when the share is driven through our heart. Then by faith we shall see beyond the pain and trial the blessing of richer life, of whiter holiness, of larger fruitfulness. And to win that blessing will be worth all the pain and trial.
"Let me not die before I've done for thee My earthly work, whatever it may be. Call me not hence, with mission unfulfilled; Let me not leave my space of ground unfilled; Impress this truth upon me, that not one Can do my portion, that I leave undone."
We are all builders. We may not erect any house or temple on a city street, for human eyes to see, but every one of us builds a fabric which God and angels see. Life is a building. It rises slowly, day by day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the edifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, every touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every book we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonest days, adds something to the invisible building. Sorrow, too, has its place in preparing the stones to lie on the life-wall. All life furnishes the material.
"Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build."
There are many noble fabrics of character reared in this world. But there are also many who build only low, mean huts, without beauty, which will be swept away in the testing-fires of judgment. There are many, too, whose life-work presents the spectacle of an unfinished building. There was a beautiful plan to begin with, and the work promised well for a little time; but after a while it was abandoned and left standing, with walls half-way up, a useless fragment, open and exposed, an incomplete, inglorious ruin, telling no story of past splendor as do the ruins of some old castle or coliseum, a monument only of folly and failure.
"There is nothing sadder," writes one, "than an incomplete ruin; one that has never been of use; that never was what it was meant to be; about which no pure, holy, lofty associations cling, no thoughts of battles fought and victories won, or of defeats as glorious as victories. God sees them where we do not. The highest tower may be more unfinished than the lowest to him."
We must not forget the truth of this last sentence. There are, lives which to our eyes seem only to have been begun and then abandoned, which to God's eyes are still rising into more and more graceful beauty. Here is one who began his life-work with all the ardor of youth and all the enthusiasm of a consecrated spirit. For a time his hand never tired, his energy never slackened. Friends expected great things from him. Then his health gave way. The diligent hand lies idle and waiting now. His enthusiasm no more drives him afield. His work lies unfinished.
"What a pity!" men say. But wait! He has not left an unfinished life-work as God sees it. He is resting in submission at the Master's feet and is growing meanwhile as a Christian. The spiritual temple in his soul is rising slowly in the silence. Every day is adding something to the beauty of his character, as he learns the lessons of patience, confidence, peace, joy, love. His building at the last will be more beautiful than if he had been permitted to toil on through many busy years, carrying out his own plans. He is fulfilling God's purpose for his life.