| The Beauty of Self Control |
Chapter 20 |
Page 9 |
There is another ending: we shall come to the end of life itself. We shall come to the close of our last day; we shall do our last piece of work, and take our last walk, and write our last letter, and sing our last song, and speak our last “Good night”; then tomorrow we shall be gone, and the palaces that have known us shall know us no more. Whatever other experiences we may miss, we shall not miss dying. Every human path, through whatever scenes it may wander, must bend at last into the Valley of Shadows.
Yet we ought not to thinks of death as calamity or disaster; if we are Christians, it will be the brightest day of our whole life when we are called to go away from earth to heaven. Work will then be finished, conflict will be left behind, and life in its full, true, rich meaning will only really begin.
True preparation for death is made when we close each day as if it were the last. We are never sure of tomorrow; we would leave nothing incomplete any night. Each single, separate little day should be a miniature life complete in itself, with nothing of duty left over. God gives us life by days, and with each day he gives its own allotment of duty – a portion of his plan to be wrought out, a fragment of his purpose to be accomplished by us. Says Faber, “Every hour comes with some little faggot of God’s will fastened upon its back.” Our mission is to find that bit of divine will and do it. Well lived days make completed years, and the years well lived as they come make a life beautiful and full. In such a life no special preparation of any kind is needed; he who lives thus is always ready. Each day prepares for the next, and the last day prepares for glory.
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