| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 14 |
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No one should ever despise another’s work or his way of doing it. We dare not call any work lowly or insignificant. Besides, we really have nothing to do with any one’s life’s tasks but our own. “The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee; or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Some people in their confidence in their own way of doing things have no patience with the way other people do things. There is a need for different methods, if we would reach the needs of people and do all kinds of necessary work. Let us judge no other man’s way and no other man’s work. St. Paul suggests also that the dull and less showy manner of some other people’s way of working may be more effective than the brilliant way we do things. “Nay, much rather, those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary; and those parts of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour.” For example, the brain, the heart, the lungs, and other organs which work out of sight may not get so much attention as the face, the eyes, the hands, and yet they are even more necessary than these. One may lose a hand, a foot, an eye, and still live and make much of his life. But when lungs or heart are destroyed, the life is ended.
There are showy Christians, active and valuable in their way, who might be lost to the church, and yet their loss not be felt half so much as that of some of the lowly one, who by their prayers and godly lives help to keep the church alive. We dare not look with contempt upon the lowliest person. We do not know who are dearest to God among all his children. It was a poor widow in the temple one day who won the highest commendation from him who looks upon the heart. There is no part of the body, however unseemly and unhonoured, which is not essential, whose function, perhaps, is not of even greater importance than the showiest member. So it may be that the plain Christians whom some people laugh at are they to whom the church is indebted for the richest spiritual blessings it receives.
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