We all like to feel that what we are doing counts for something — that it is really worthwhile. We know that much labor is lost in the world, and we do not want ours to be lost. We naturally feel that when we do something, we want it to be something that people can see and value. Some think, “If I could just preach — I wouldn’t mind working for the Lord. But, I can do so little — nothing worth the effort. What can my feeble efforts accomplish, anyway?”
Others think if they could go to a foreign land, draw people to Christ there, send home great reports of accomplishments and have their names published in the paper —then that would be worthwhile. But since they are only ordinary people and can do only ordinary things — it seems to them that it hardly pays to try. They will just follow the line of least resistance and do things the easiest way. Of course they want to do what they can for God — but they also want to do something really great.
What is really worthwhile in life? Is it only those things that make a great show? Things the world counts as great? A sister said to me recently in a letter, “I used to think that I could do nothing worthwhile, but I have found that just simply living as a true Christian before people, is a great work.” Now, that sister has learned a wonderful lesson. She has found a truth so great, that most people do not recognize it as truth when they do find it.
Simply living as a true Christian before people is one of the very greatest things that an individual has ever done in this world. Talk is cheap, and many people can talk all day — yet scarcely say anything worthwhile. Some can sway great crowds and accomplish wonderful things — but still they do not live as a true Christian. There is no power so great in this world — as the simple power of a holy, quiet life.
The sister mentioned can never hope to do great things. She is frail and isolated and cannot attend meetings. She cannot preach but she has learned the great fact that she is not shut out from doing a grand work.
If all God’s people learned that it really counts just simply to live a holy life, it would change their lives. It would exalt the common service, it would shed a halo over their lives, and they would not feel discouraged.
When Moses was at Pharaoh’s court, I suppose he thought that he was doing something really worthwhile. He amounted to something there. But when the Lord let him be driven away from that court out into the wilderness, he likely thought his occupation there was hardly worthwhile. He was just taking care of the sheep — out to the pasture and back to the fold, seven days a week, and nothing more.
The work did not look great to others, but it did to God. God thought it worth so much, that he kept him at that work for forty years. At the age of eighty, when it looked as if he were about done with this world, Moses was called to go to do something for the Lord. That forty years in the wilderness counted now. It had given him experience that helped to qualify him for the work to which God had called him. He was worthwhile — because he had done something worthwhile in those years. He had learned about God and now he was ready to put that knowledge into practice.
Sometimes our lives take us into the wilderness — when it seems God has let us be put in a corner — where our tasks seem to count for little. But the tasks and the time count for us — if they do not count anywhere else.
Faithfulness stands out above all others in human life. Regardless of our situation, if we are faithful, it is sure to count.
The one thing we can all do is be faithful to the Lord. Do what he wants us to do. Live pure, holy, undefiled, and keep shining every day — no matter the circumstances. Keep shining. That is the thing that counts. There is no greater or more necessary work in the world than putting the truth of God into visible form, in a pure and quiet life.
Charles Wesley Naylor is considered one of the most prolific and inspiring songwriters of the Church of God. He was bedridden for much of his adult life but wrote eight books, a newspaper column and more than 150 songs. Many of his writings are in the public domain.
