| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 24 |
Page 5 |
But it is not easy to drop our seed into the ground. It appears to us like wasting it, losing it, throwing it away. We want to keep it. Well, if we do, it will be nothing more than it is today – a pleasure, a coin, an hour of ease. But if we give it up in answer to love’s call or need, it will grow into a great harvest of blessing.
We do not like the word “duty.” It seems to mean something hard and unpleasant. But when we accept it from our Master and take it up with love in our heart, it is transformed for us into something beautiful. A traveler in South Africa tells of picking up a rough pebble. As he turned it over in his hand his trained eye saw the gleaming diamond. Duty may have a rough and unattractive crust, but he who accepts it and looks at it through eyes of love sees it in a service for Christ which will yield the heavenly treasure of peace and joy.
“God placed a duty in my hand;
Before mine eyes could see
Its rightful form, that duty seemed
A bitter thing to me.
The sun of glory rose and shone;
Then duty I forgot,
And thought with what a privilege
The Lord had blessed my lot.”
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