Quiet Talks with World Winners Part 17

But men who are awake, and doing something, find a vent for their energy on some lower level. The G.o.d-given energy will move out and stir itself to action. But, having somehow missed the real purpose planned for them, they allow the lower purposes to grip them. They organize great affairs, or less great, industrial, intellectual, political, fraternal, social, and spend their energy on these. It is the response they make to the call of their natures for some great gripping purpose. But it looks very much like another case of meeting a request for bread with cold hard stones.

These things in themselves are right, of course; so far as they are right. They belong in the scheme of life. They should be given full place in one's life. But that place is always a distinctly secondary place. They belong in as number two.

A Christian business man gives most of the day and year to his business, and gives of the best of his thought and strength to it. But if he have gotten his bearings straight, his business is not in first place. It is made to serve something higher. It earns the gold with which to finance the great purpose of Jesus' life, and of his own life, namely, the purpose of winning men, and of winning a whole world of them. How it would sweeten business and fraternal and social contacts and friendships, if the salt of this great purpose seasoned them!

Living Broad Lives in Narrow Alleys.

We need the bigness of this great purpose. So many lives are dwarfed by their very littlenesses. We are bothered with being short-sighted. The eyegla.s.ses of the Master's purpose for us would wondrously widen out our scope of vision. And through the new eyes would come broader, farther, clearer views, and changed action. The littleness of our ideas would be amusing if it were not so distressing.

I recall one day riding on a Fort-Wayne train through Indiana. I chanced to overhear a bit of conversation. Two men, chance acquaintances, were talking. One of them had his home in Elkhart. The other asked him where Elkhart is. By the side of the Elkhart man there sat a little sweet-faced boy. Instantly, as the question was asked, he looked up with surprised eyes, and said, "Don't you know where Elkhart is? Why, Elkhart is down where I live."

The amusing childish words seemed to have a familiar sound. I seem to have run across a few people whose idea of G.o.d's world is about on the level of the small boy's. The world is where they live. The rest is a hazy, vague something, or--nothing. It exists for them, if it exists at all in their thoughts.

"Living for self, for self alone, for self and none beside; Just as if Jesus had never lived, as if Jesus had never died."

It would be pitiable and pathetic enough if only these people themselves were concerned in their poor, stunted, narrow-alley living. But it is more than that; it is tragic, because of the mult.i.tude of brothers, here and abroad, sorely needing the help that was meant to go out to them through us.

Then most men live narrow lives so far as the daily round is concerned.

The home, or shop, or store, or office is their daily horizon, with practically the same round of duties day after day, year in and year out.

The very narrowness of the round tends to make narrow people. They get into as much of a rut in their thinking as their daily action is apt to become. Their work runs in fixed grooves that are apt to become fixed ruts. And this makes ruts in their thinking. Their souls seem to grow small by the very smallness and sameness of the daily tread. That is the life of the great crowd of men all over the world.

It's an immense relief to see something big Big things always attract. Is it partly because our daily round is so narrow and small? Jesus plans a bigness that shall refresh us constantly. We have hearts big enough to hold a world, and brains able to plan for a planet, even while our feet tread the same old shut-in path.

A young man may be going a commonplace, treadmill sort of grind, in a small corner of some great manufacturing concern, and be at the same time carrying on a bigger enterprise than the president of his concern. For he may be planning and praying for a world, and actually lifting it up in the arms of his strong purpose toward the level of G.o.d.

The shipping clerk may be hammering in barrel-heads all day long, but each blow may help emphasize the prayer of his heart for China, or India, or his Sunday-school cla.s.s.

"Forenoon, afternoon, and night, Forenoon, afternoon, and night, Forenoon, afternoon, and what? no more?

The empty song repeats itself. Yea, that is life.

Make this forenoon sublime, this afternoon a psalm, This night a prayer, and time is conquered, and thy crown is won."

The Master's gracious plan is that we shall have the refreshment of doing big things. We are made for big things. They help us grow into the big size that belongs to us. World-winning is a great boon to the crowd compelled by the habit of life to tread a narrow path.

Giving G.o.d Free Use of Ourselves.

Now the great question every earnest man asks himself is, How can I be of most use to G.o.d and my fellows? I want to suggest three things that have helped me in answering that question. It may be that they will help you, too, in getting your answer to it.

First of all is this: that we let G.o.d have the free use of us. Whatever I am, whatever gifts and opportunities I have--these I will turn over to G.o.d, that He may have the fullest and freest use of them. G.o.d asks from each of us a consecrated personality. And "consecrated" simply means that I give G.o.d the use of myself, and that He makes use of what I have given to Him. That's the double meaning of the word in the Bible.

My personality, that is, what I am in myself, is the chief thing I have in life. It is through this personality, which men recognize as I, that the Spirit of G.o.d works in His reaching out for others. My personality is the make-up of all that I am. My presence is that subtle something that combines all that I am. It clings to me wherever I go. Men know it by my name. Out through it goes the power of the man within.

The body, the glance of the eye, the quality and intonation of the voice, the way the body is carried, and the something more than these that unites them into one--these go to make up the presence, the outer sh.e.l.l of the personality. All the power within makes itself felt through this. A man's mere presence is an immeasurable influence.

There is a subtle, intangible, but very real spirit influence breathing out of every man's presence. It is proportioned entirely to the strength of the man living within. With some it is very attractive. Sometimes it is positively repulsive. It is the expression of the man within. The presence becomes the mould of the spirit within, large or small, n.o.ble or mean, coa.r.s.e or fine, as he makes it. The strength of a man's will or its weakness; the purity of his heart or its lack of purity; the ideals of his life, high or low; the keenness or slowness of his thinking--all these express themselves in his presence.

We know the difference between a man of strong presence and one whose presence is weak; though very few of us are skilled in reading, except in a very small way, the character it reveals; through our presence each of us is constantly influencing those with whom we come in contact. Now this is the chief thing we have for our winning work. This is the thing that Jesus uses. It is this that the Spirit of G.o.d takes possession of, if He may, and that He uses in His outreach to others. We win most and best through what we are.

Now, of course, I do not mean that we are to be thinking of it that way all the time. The thinking that you have a winsome presence would itself rob you of the most winsome part of it. Winsomeness of presence is greatest and sweetest when we are wholly unconscious that there is such a thing about us. As we are absorbed in Jesus, and in our fellows, the winsomeness that is native to us shines out most attractively. It has been covered up and hidden away a good bit by sin. Some men seem to have none.

Some have a great deal, in spite of their ignoring of G.o.d.

But as He is allowed to play upon us, as we seek to let His Spirit rule our conduct and control our powers, the original G.o.d-image comes out. This is a return to natural conditions as planned by G.o.d. What has been lost through sin is restored and grown bigger and richer by the Spirit's presence. I can give G.o.d the full use of this precious gift of personality.

Growing Bigger for Service's Sake.

There's a second thing to do. This consecrated personality can be made a developed personality. We don't start into life full size. We have to grow. The greatest task of life, as well as one of the sweetest, is in growing fine in grain, and big in size, and skilled in action. The highest achievement of life and the rarest to find is self-mastery, that is, all that one is in himself grown big and fine-grained, skilfully used and held steadily to its true use. All other achievements are through this one.

The stronger I can make my body the more I can give G.o.d to use. The more thoroughly I can understand the great, simple laws of my body, and the more I can get into the habit of obeying them, the more can G.o.d use me in His plans. Such common things as eating and drinking, breathing and exercising, sleeping and resting and dress, may not be called common any more, if through thoughtfulness here you and I can be of greater use to our Master and our fellows.

The keener and clearer and stronger we can make our thinking, by dint of self-discipline, the greater power have we with other men. The purer the heart, the loftier the practical ideals that control the personal habits, the greater is the winning power at command.

We may not be conscious of the difference. We will not be thinking of that. But the increased power of attraction is there, and is breathing out of one's presence, and is distinctly felt by others. And, more, it is making a distinct mark upon others, more than they know. We must set ourselves to growing bigger and better for service's sake.

My Mission-field.

The third thing is a world-wide vision. That is to say, our thinking and planning and praying and giving shall be on a world scale. There is nothing remarkable about this. The strangely remarkable thing is that there is so little of it. Man was made on the world size. It is natural to us to grasp the world in our thinking and action. This other thing of living on a smaller scale is the cramping effect of sin. We were, made big. We are big. We need a big world. We enjoy bigness. We get this from G.o.d. We are truest to ourselves as we live on the world plan. The world was given us originally to subdue, and now to win.

This does not mean to neglect anything or anybody nearby. It's a bit of the cramping of sin that anybody thinks so. The man who spreads a map of the world beside his open Bible in the morning or evening prayer-hour is likely to have a warm hand for the fellow next him. We are made that way, to grasp the globe, and each thing close at hand that needs our care.

That's a bit of the image of G.o.d in us. As we allow Him sway, the original power is restored to us.

One result of this will be that many of us will go in person to some far-away part of the great world-field. That's a serious thing to do, requiring some special qualification of body and of training. For the task out there is a great one. There are trying conditions to be met. The very best is called for.

If a man may go in person to the foreign field he is greatly favored. Let nothing hold him back. It is a privilege to serve anywhere. But the highest privilege of service is out there. Many cannot go; and many may not go. Some are plainly bidden to stay. The home administration of the missionary enterprise requires strong men at home.

A second result will be that wherever we are, will be a mission-field to us. We are, where we are, to give, not to get. Whether in far-off China or maybe in some disillusioned commonplace home town, we will be winning men to Jesus all the time by direct touch. The mastering thought will be to let the wondrous Spirit reach out through us, freely and fully, unhindered by anything in us, and so touch every one whom we touch.

In any circle, business or social, our hearts will be saying, "I am among you as he that serveth." Consciously, by direct word, by indirect touch, with love's rare diplomacy we will win men. Unconsciously, by our presence, we will as really be winning them.

No one has an imagination vivid enough, or words graphic enough, to tell the power of that direct human touch. All life is athrill with its magic.

Even when it becomes less direct, a bit removed from the personal, its power is indescribably great.

John Eliot's work among the Ma.s.sachusetts Indians kindled David Brainerd.

Brainerd's flame touched Jonathan Edwards. Edwards' pamphlet on "Extraordinary Prayer for a Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth" suggested to William Carey the plan of an organized society. Fire spreads. Where the touch of G.o.d comes the fire of G.o.d goes out through that human touch.

Our Spirit-touch.