December 15

Every man’s life a plan of God

“And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go . . . have not I sent thee?” (Judges 6:14).
“Who hath . . . called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace” (2 Tim. 1:9).

God has a definite life-plan for every human person, girding him visibly or invisibly, for some exact thing which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished. Many persons never even think of any such thing. They suppose that, for most men, life is a necessarily stale and common affair. What it means for them they do not know. They complain, venting heavy sighs, that, while some few are set forward by God to do great works and fill important places, they are not allowed to believe that there is any particular object in their existence.


What do the Scriptures show us, but that God has a particular care for every man, a personal interest in him and a sympathy with him and his trials. God watches for the use of his one talent as attentively and kindly, and approves him as heartily, in the right employment of it, as if He had given him ten.
—Horace Bushnell.

Thou cam’st not to thy place by accident,
It is the very place God meant for thee;
And shouldst thou then small scope for action see,
Do not for this give room to discontent,
Nor let the time thou owest to God be spent
In idly dreaming how thou mightest be,
In what concerns thy spiritual life more free
From outward hindrance or impediment.
—Richard Chenevix Trench.

Tell me that I have received my ministry from man, and I shall take one view of the difficulties which may beset it. But tell me that that ministry has been imposed upon me from Heaven, and that I am called and the elect of God to do a certain work; and whatever may be the impediments round about me, there shall be sunshine in my heart, there shall be deep, inexplicable peace in my soul; I shall regard the difficulties of the present occasion as but momentary, and the strength upon which I rest shall be nothing less than the omnipotence of God.
Whose servants are we, then? Who has called us to this Christian work? We are called of God, we are not called of men, and we must take our orders from Heaven, and not from earth.
—Joseph Parker.

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