THE SACREDNESS OF OPPORTUNITY
by J. R. Miller Jesus said, Walk while
you have the light, Before darkness overtakes you. Sometimes darkness
is very welcome. It is welcome to the weary man,
who can scarcely wait until the sun sets to cease his toil. To him, darkness means rest.
It folds him in its curtains, away from the noise and strife,
and restores his exhausted strength. Darkness is welcome in many a
home, for it is the signal for the home-gathering of loved ones,
and the joys of the evening fireside. All day the hearthstone has drawn
upon the hearts of the scattered household, and the coming of
the night is the signal for the home-gathering. But it is not
a friendly darkness to which our Lord refers. The figure his
words suggest is that of a wild beast coming upon the traveller,
pursuing him, overtaking him, pouncing upon him, devouring
him. Thus it was that Jesus urged
his disciples to walk in the light while they had it, to be
quick to use the few moments of the day that remained before
the devouring darkness should swoop down upon them. The lesson
is here for us. Most of us live as if we had
a thousand years to stay here in this world. We loiter in the
golden hours of our little days, as if the days were never to
end. We do not see how swiftly the
sun is whirling toward his setting, while our work is but half done,
our task perhaps scarcely begun. We fritter away days, weeks,
months, not noticing how our one little opportunity of living
in this world is being worn off, as the sea eats away a crumbling
bank, until its last shred is gone. We set slight value on
time, forgetting that we have only a hand-breath of it. And
then comes eternity. What did you do yesterday that
will brighten and glorify that day forever? What record of blessing
in other lives did you give it to carry to God's judgment? What
burden did you lift off another heart? What tear did you wipe
away? On what soul did you leave a
mark of beauty? Where is your yesterday? Many
of us fail to appreciate the value of single days. A day is
too short a space, we say, that it cannot make much difference
if one, just one, is wasted, or idled away in pleasure. Yet,
the days are links in a chain, and if one link is broken, the
chain is broken. In God's plan for our life, each
little day has its own load of duty, its own record to make. We never know the sacredness
of any particular day, what it may have for us amid its treasures. Its sunshine may be no brighter
than that of other days. There may be no peculiar feature
in it to mark it as special among a thousand common days, and yet
it may be to us a day of destiny. If we fail to receive it as God's
gift, we may miss and lose that without which we shall be poor
all our life and in eternity. How often do we see afterward
that the days which are gone were bearers of heavenly gifts
to us, which we had not the wit to recognize, nor the grace to
take. When they have passed beyond
recall, then we see what we missed in wasting them. How these lost
days shame us, as they turn their reproachful eyes upon us, out
of the irrecoverable past. walk while you have the light,
before darkness overtakes you. There are many illustrations
of this coming of darkness, this ending of opportunity. The lesson
touches everyone's life. There is the darkness that comes
as season after season of privilege closes. Here the teaching is
especially for the young. Some things God gives often,
some only once. The seasons return again and
again, and the flowers change with the months, but youth comes
twice to none. Youth is the time for preparation. The success of the afterlife
depends upon the diligence of the first years. A wasted youth
is followed by the darkness of misfortune and failure. Youth
is the time to gather knowledge. It is the time, too, to form
good habits. It is the time to make good friendships. It is the time to follow Christ. It is the time to train the faculties
for the best work in life. It is the time to prepare for
life's business. When youth closes, with its opportunities,
leaving one unready for the days of stress, struggle, duty, and
responsibility that must come, perilous indeed is the darkness
that wraps the life, and drags it down. Many young people are
wasteful of time. They fail to realize its value. They appear to have it in such
abundance that they never dream it can end. They do not know
that a day lost in golden youth may mean misfortune or failure
for them sometime in the future. They do not know that missed
lessons, squandered hours, minutes spent in idleness, may cost them
the true success of their life, bringing failure or disaster,
and may even blight their destiny. Young people should walk earnestly
while they have the light, redeeming the time, buying up the opportunity,
lest darkness overtake them. They should not make the mistake
of imagining they have so much time that they can afford to
let days or hours or even minutes be wasted. They cannot afford
to lose one golden minute of any day. That may be the very
minute of all that day on which their destiny hangs. Says a thoughtful
writer, one of the illusions is that the present hour is not
the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every
day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly
until he knows that every day is doomsday. This is very true. We do not know what momentous
issues, affecting all our future, are involved in any quietest
hour of any commonplace day. There is a time for everything,
but the time is short, and when it is gone, and the thing is
not done, it never can be done. Never comes the opportunity that
passed. That one moment was its last. Walk while you have the light,
before darkness overtakes you. While you have your eyes, use
them. A young man was told by his physicians
that in six months he would be blind. At once he set out to
look upon the most beautiful scenes in nature, and the loveliest
works of art, in all parts of the world, so that, before his
eyes were closed for ever, His memory might be stored with visions
of beauty to brighten the darkness into which he was surely moving. Use your eyes while you have
the light. See as many as possible of the
lovely things God has made. Read the best books you can find,
and store your mind with great and noble thoughts. Learn while
it is easy to learn. Be a student. Be a worker, too. Fill your days full of intense
activities, for it will be only a little while till darkness
shall overtake you, when you can work no more. What you do,
you must do quickly. What you make of your life, you
must make in a few years at the most. For the human span is short,
and any day may be your last one. This lesson is for those
who are in life's prime and for those who are advancing toward
old age, as well as for the young. Every day that passes leaves
life's margin a little less for each of us. Our allotment of
time is ever shortening. We must work while the day lasts. We must do good while our hearts
are warm. We must speak the words of life
before our lips grow dumb. We must scatter kindnesses in
the world before our hands grow feeble. We must pour out love
to bless the lonely before our pulses are stilled. We must not
crowd God's work out of our busy days, hoping to have time for
it by and by, when leisure comes. Ah, by and by it will be too
late. Those who need us now will not
need us then. The deeds of love which we should
do to-day We cannot do to-morrow. The sick neighbor who now longs
for our warm sympathy and gentle ministry, will not need us when
our tasks have been finished and we have leisure time. There
will be death-crepe on the door then, and there will be no use
in our calling with our word of love. The child needs the
father's care, guidance, counsel, and loving patience now. A few moments given each day
would make indelible impressions upon the boy's soul, and bind
him fast with chains of gold about the feet of God. But a
little later it may be no use to try to bless his life. He
will have passed beyond the period when even a father's hand can
mould his life. Never leave out of your busy
days love's duties to your heart's own, whatever else you may leave
out. It were better to miss almost
anything else in life than what affection demands. Work while
you have the light. Do the things that are most important,
most sacred, most vital. Over the doorway of a certain
church is the inscription, Only the Eternal is Important. There are a great many things
it is not worth our while to do. Some of us spend our days
in poor trivialities which bless no one, and which will add no
luster to our crown. Only the Eternal is Important.
Therefore, walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes
you. Waste no opportunity. Despise
no privilege. Squander no moment. There is
just time enough in God's plan for you to live your life well,
if you spend every moment of it in earnest, faithful duty. One hour lost will leave a flaw. A life thus lived in unbroken
diligence and faithfulness will have no regrets when the end
comes. Its work will be completed. It
will not be night, that then overtakes it in the mystery which
men call death, but day, rather the morning of eternity.