Unfinished Life-building

Unfinished Life-building
From Timeless Grace Gems
By J. R. Miller

"This fellow began to build - and was not able to finish!" Luke 14:30

We are all builders. We may not erect any house or temple on a city street for human eyes to see - but everyone of us builds an edifice which God sees! Life is a building. It rises slowly, day by day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn, lays another block on the edifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, every touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every book we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonest days - adds something to the invisible building. Sorrow, too, has its place in preparing the stones to lie on the life-wall. All of life furnishes the material.

There are many noble structures built in this world. But there are also many who build only base, shabby huts, without beauty, which will be swept away in the testing fires of judgment. There are many, too, whose life-work presents the spectacle of an unfinished building. There was a beautiful plan to begin with, and the work was promising for a little time - but after a while it was abandoned and left standing, with walls halfway up - a useless fragment, open and exposed, an incomplete inglorious ruin - telling no story of past splendor as do the ruins of some old castle or coliseum - a monument only of folly and failure.

One writes: There is nothing sadder than an incomplete ruin, one that has never been of use, that never was what it was meant to be, about which no pure, holy, lofty associations cling, no thoughts of battles fought and victories won, or of defeats as glorious as victories. God sees them where we do not. The highest tower, may be more unfinished than the lowest - to Him.

We must not forget the truth of this last sentence. There are lives which to our eyes - seem only to have been begun and then abandoned, which to God's eyes are still rising into more and more graceful beauty. Here is one who began his life-work with all the ardor of youth and all the enthusiasm of a consecrated spirit. For a time his hand never tired, his energy never slackened. Friends expected great things from him. Then his health gave way. The diligent hand lies folded now on his bosom. His enthusiasm no more drives him onward. His work lies unfinished.

"What a pity!" men say. But wait! He has not left an unfinished lifework - as God sees it. He is resting in submission at the Master's feet, and is growing meanwhile in the Christian graces. The spiritual temple in his soul is rising slowly in the silence. Every day is adding something to the beauty of his character as he learns the lessons of patience, confidence, peace, joy, love. His building in the end will be more beautiful, than if he had been permitted to toil on through many busy years, carrying out his own plans. He is fulfilling God's plan for his life.

We must not measure spiritual building - by earthly standards. Where the heart remains loyal and true to Christ; where the cross of suffering is taken up cheerfully and borne sweetly; where the spirit is obedient, though the hands must lie folded and the feet must be still - the temple rises continually toward finished beauty.

But there are abandoned life-buildings whose story tells only of shame and failure. Many people begin to follow Christ, and after a little time turn away from their profession, and leave only a pretentious beginning to stand as a ruin, to be laughed at by the world, and to dishonor the Master's name.

Sometimes it is discouragement that leads men to give up the work which they have begun. In one of his poems, Wordsworth tells a pathetic story of a straggling heap of unhewn stones and the beginning of a sheepfold which was never finished. With his wife and only son, old Michael, a Highland shepherd, dwelt for many years in peace. But trouble came which made it necessary that the son should go away to do for himself for a while. For a time good reports came from him, and the old shepherd would go when he had leisure and work on the sheepfold which he was building. By and by, however, sad news came from his son Luke. In the great dissolute city, he had given himself to evil ways. Shame fell on him, and he sought a hiding place beyond the seas. The sad tidings broke the old father's heart. He went about as before, caring for his sheep. To the hollow valley he would go from time to time - to build at the unfinished sheep-fold. But the neighbors in their pity noticed that he did little work in those sad days.

Years after the shepherd was gone, the remains of the unfinished sheep-fold were still there, a sad memorial of one who began to build - but did not finish. Sorrow broke his heart - and his hand slacked.

Too often noble life-buildings are abandoned in the time of sorrow, and the hands that were quick and skillful before grief came, hang down and do nothing more on the temple-wall. Instead, however, of leading us to give up our work and falter in our diligence - it should inspire is to yet greater earnestness in all duty, and greater fidelity in all life.