My Will or God's Will by J. R. Miller May your will be done. Matthew 6 verse 11 Not as I will,
but as you will. Matthew 26 verse 39 What is success? What is the true aim in life?
What should one, setting out to make his way through this
world, take as the goal of all his living and striving? Views
of life differ widely. Many think they are in this world
to make a career for themselves. They set out with some splendid
vision of success in their mind, and they devote their life to
the realizing of this vision. If they fail in this, they suppose
they have failed in life. If they achieve their dream,
they consider themselves, and are considered by others, as
successful. The world has no other standard
of success. It may be the amassing of wealth,
it may be the winning of power among men, it may be triumph
of a certain skill, or genius in art, in literature, or in
music, but whatever the definite object may be, it is purely an
earthly ambition. The two elements in the life,
according to this view, are that the career is one which the world
honors, and that a man wins distinction in it. Applying this standard
to life, only a few men are really successful. Great men are as
rare as lofty mountain peaks. Only a few win the high places. The mass remain in the lower
valleys. The percentage of those who succeed
in business is small. In the professions, too, in literature,
in art, in civil life, in all the callings, it is the same. Only a few win honor, rise into
fame, achieve distinction, while the great multitude remain in
obscurity, or go down in the dust of earthly defeat. Is this
the only standard of success in life? Do all men, except for
the few who win earth's prizes, really fail? Is there no other
kind of success? The world's answer gives no comfort
to those who find themselves among the unhonored But there
is another sphere. There is a life in which success
is not material, but spiritual. One may utterly fail, so far
as earthly results are concerned, and yet, in the invisible spiritual
realm, be a splendid winner in the race. The true test of life
is character. Everything else is extraneous,
belonging only to the husk, which shall fall off in the day of
ripening. Character is the kernel, the
wheat, that which is true and enduring. Nothing else is worthwhile,
except that which we can carry with us through death and into
eternity. Paul puts it in a sentence when
he says, So fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what
is unseen. For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 18 It is altogether possible that
a man may fail of winning any earthly greatness, any distinction
among men, anything that will immortalize him in this world's
calendars, and yet he be richly and nobly successful in spiritual
things, in character, in a ministry of usefulness, in things which
shall abide when mountains have crumbled into dust. It is possible
for one to fall behind in the race for wealth and honour, and
yet all the while to be building up in himself an eternal fabric
of beauty and strength. Here is a man who at midlife
is a physical wreck. He has dropped out of the ranks,
and fallen far behind those who at the first were his comrades.
He is a hopeless invalid. The other day the physician said
that he will never get any better. He may live for many years, yet
there is nothing before him but pathetic invalidism. Shall we
say that this man's life is a failure because of his physical condition,
which has put a stop to all efforts, and compels him to sit with folded
hands in the shadows, watching busy men at their tasks as they
continue to win honour and success? No, his life need not be a failure. He has lived nobly all his years. There is not a stain upon his
name. He has been building up in himself
a character in which the Beatitudes shine. Loveliness, meekness,
hunger for righteousness, mercifulness, purity of heart, the peacemaking
spirit. He has won no name in the world's
ranks, but he has followed Christ faithfully, and has pleased him. He has lived a life of love,
too. love which has expressed itself,
not merely in word, but in countless ministries of grace to those
who have turned to him for sympathy and help. He has had God in heaven
in all his life, and has lived near the heart of Christ. No
doubt there is a mystery about the strange ways of providence
with him, but we may be sure that this godly man's life is
in God's sight no less successful when all activity has ceased
than it was in the days when he was busiest, full of energy
and toil. Who will say, indeed, that these
are not his best days? While the outer man has been
perishing, decaying, may not the inner man have been growing
in all worthy qualities, in all spiritual graces, in the things
which shall endure for ever? Ofttimes it is in what the world
regards as failure that a man really achieves his noblest and
best success. Many a man has found his soul
only when he has lost his fortune, or his health, or his place. We are not accustomed to thank
God for our disappointments, for the blighting of our earthly
hopes and expectations, for the failure of our plans, but we
might safely do so, oftentimes, for it is in such experiences
as these that we are led to the sources of truest blessedness
and most enduring honour. What is the standard of success
in the sphere of the unseen and the eternal? It is, in doing,
the will of God. He who does the will of God makes
his life radiant and beautiful, though in the world's scale he
is rated as having altogether failed in the battle. He who
is true, just, humble, pure, pleasing God, and living unselfishly,
is the only man who really succeeds, while all others fail. Really,
there is no other final and infallible standard of living. One who writes
his name highest in earth's lists, and yet has not done God's will,
meanwhile, has failed, as God himself looks at his career. God has a purpose in our creation,
and we succeed only when our life carries out this purpose. The most radiant career, as it
appears to men, means nothing if it is not that for which God
has made us. We fail in life if we do not
realize God's will for us. We live worthily only when we
do what God sent us here to do. A splendid career in the sight
of men has no splendor in God's sight if it is but the striving
of human ambition, if it is not God's ideal for the life. Not the making of a fine worldly
career, therefore, but the simple doing of God's will, is the one
true aim in living. Thus only can we achieve real
success. If we do this, though we fail
in the earthly race, we shall not fail in God's sight. We may make no name among men,
may raise for ourselves no monument of earthly glory, But, if we
please God by a life of obedience and humble service, and build
up within us a character in which divine virtues shine, we shall
have attained abiding success. The only way, therefore, to make
our life nobly and truly successful is to devote ourselves to the
doing of God's will. It is not the things we want
to do that are the best, but the things God would have us
do. Oftentimes these may be things
which to our thought it is scarcely worth while to do, and the turning
aside from our fine schemes and conspicuous efforts to attend
to these trivialities may appear to be a wasting of talent and
time. But always, God's will is the
grandest thing we can find to do in all the world, though it
is in men's eyes the lowliest task our hands can do. An autobiographical
passage in the life of Norman MacLeod illustrates this. My life, he says, is not what
I would have chosen. I often long for quiet, for reading,
and for thought. It seems to me to be a very paradise
to be able to read, to think, go deep into things, to gather
the glorious riches of intellectual culture. But God, in His providence,
has forbidden this to me. I must spend hours in receiving
people who wish to speak to me about all manner of trifles.
I must reply to letters about nothing. I must engage in public
work on everything. I must employ my life on what
seems uncongenial, vanishing, temporary, wasteful. Yet, God
knows me better than I know myself. He knows my gifts, my abilities,
my failings, and my weakness. What I can do, and what I cannot
do. So I desire to be led, and not
to lead, to follow him. I am quite sure he has thus enabled
me to do a great deal more, in ways which seem to me almost
a waste of life, in advancing his kingdom, than I would have
done any other way. The most successful life is the
one which submits the most cheerfully and the most completely to the
will of God. It will not be an indolent life,
nor will it be aimless and purposeless. It is the will of God that every
ability of our being shall be brought out, trained and disciplined
to its highest possibility, and devoted to the noblest and worthiest
service, but the dominant influence in our life should always be
the will of God, and not any ambition of our own. Then shall
we fulfill the purpose for which God made us when he sent us into
the world, and this will be the noblest career possible for us.