Mistaken ideas of success.
None of us can properly understand or estimate our life-work. We do not know what it was designed to do, nor where it properly fits. Picturing the ideal "Servant of the Lord," Isaiah represents him as disheartened with the issues of his testimony and labour. The Messiah seemed to be "all day long stretching forth his hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people." Mistakes about the success of work are quite common to God's servants. David thought it was no good to try any longer, and exclaimed, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." Elijah moaned in his weariness and grief, "I am not better [more successful] than my fathers;" and Jonah, fainting in the sun beside the withered gourd, "It is better for me to die than to live. To him the Nineveh-mission appeared as an utter and disgraceful failure. We must leave God to estimate our successes. "The day" shall declare it. We must wait for the "day of God."
I. MAN IS REQUIRED TO WORK WITHOUT CONSIDERATION OF RESULTS. And that is reasonable,
II. MAN MAY BE CULTURED THROUGH HIS DISTRESS AT RESULTS. One point only is suggested. Seeming failure reveals the self-seeking which had been in his work. And it is the best of culture to get true knowledge of ourselves. The man who aims for results really works for himself—for his own praise. We must just work as God's servants, satisfied to do work that can stand his inspection; and none of us will find it easy to draw in our minds from results, and concentrate them on work.
III. MAN MAY BE SURE OF THE DIVINE ACCEPTANCE OF GOOD WORK. And that is an all-satisfying result. It is only man's poor view that makes results into the standard that tests the value of the work. The best work may produce little, but it is "best work" nevertheless. Many a minister has failed in his sphere. At least, so the world says. But its foolish estimate does not matter. Was it good work? God's judgment is of the work.—R.T.