Life Is Worth While

The life is more than the food, and the body than the raiment.--Luke 12: 23.

Bread is the staff of life, and one of the great comforts of life is clothing. But we are not here merely to eat, drink, and wear fine clothes. If we were to live here always, with no other concern than to feed, clothe and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business.

The mere fact of living is a sacred thing, and the responsibility for the use of life merges into a lofty way of living. There is no human life so low or poor but that it is touched with the fire of divinity, and holds many a divine possibility. Remember that poor, uncouth lad who became Abraham Lincoln? Remember that Negro slave who became Booker T. Washington? It is an inspiring thought--the divine possibilities latent in a human life. The thought should be a challenge to each of us to develop to the fullest the qualities with which God has endowed him and to make the most of his opportunities--to be somebody!--to make his life count.

To see the full meaning of life, we must see more than its earthly possibilities. Life is something infinitely more than a span of years. Benjamin Franklin called life a state of embryo--a preparation for the real life that is to come. Said he, A man is not completely born until he has passed through death. Unless there is a world beyond where we shall use the experience and force which here we make our own, life is but a vain show, a tale full of sound an fury, signifying nothing.

But life is no such meaningless thing to those who know God and live to do His will. The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever (I John 2: 17). If we are united with God and linked up in His eternal purpose, then for us death will be but the gateway into the Father’s house; it will usher us into a realm surpassing all our dreams, wherein we shall continue forever our holy service as “priests of God and of Christ” (Rev. 20: 6.)

Catch the significance of all this, and you will not ask that foolish questions, Is life worth while? It never occurs to me to ask that question. Without any misgivings, without any hesitancy, I say, life is worth while!