It’s an old cliché but one etched in powerful truth to the procrastinator’s vexation. While we find favour we best set our hand to the plough and do the work whilst we have the chance. There is the wisdom of diligence and foresight about it. Good seasons never last forever, and when they do finally come to an end, oh the dismay!
“In prosperity favours are cheap and friends are many. ’Tis well therefore to keep them for more unlucky days, for adversity costs dear and has no helpers. Retain a store of friendly and obliged persons; the day may come when their price will go up.” –Balthasar Gracian.
It is definitely wiser and easier to prepare for the coming droughts and famine whilst food and health are there to spare. And it seems so easy.
Yet the exile knows only too well, when he or she’s been scourged, easy turns difficult just as easy.
It is a discipline for the mind that a person can grasp this truth and make it sing, holding a resonating, laborious tune, knowing ever so lucidly that it may come to a crashing end just as suddenly as it started.
Fools don’t know this, or they refuse to acknowledge it; they complain of their work and of the vast opportunities at work. And whoa, can they spend!
This is plainly not the model of Jesus the Lord.
The Christ came gladly, willingly and cheerfully to serve, and not be served. He saw his living presence as that of one great opportunity after another to do his Father’s will--by example--to think no more highly of himself as he ought, whilst he remained in human flesh.
Work while there is time, enjoy it and be glad of it. Keep it simple and most of all keep smiling! Don’t waste it; taste it!
Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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