The Strength In Knowing That GOD Appoints Our Times

Now it is always a source of buoyant strength when a man comes to see that his way is ordered.

There is a quiet courage that is unmistakable in one who is certain he is led by GOD.

But remember, according to the Master's doctrine, our times are fixed as surely as our ways;

And if we are here with a certain work to do which in the purposes of GOD must be fulfilled, no harm can touch us nor is there power in death till it draws to sunset and to evening star. 

What is it that makes the Turk such a brave soldier that with all his vices we cannot but admire him?

It is his conviction of a relentless fate which he cannot hasten yet cannot hope to shun.

In the name of freedom, Christ rejects that fatalism; but on the ruins of it He erects another.

It is the fatalism of a love that is divine, for it includes the end in the beginning.

Never shirk dangers on the path of duty. On the path of duty one is always safest.

Let a man be careful that he does his task, and God will take care of the task-doing man.

For always there are twelve hours in the day, and though the clouds should darken into storm, they cannot hasten the appointed time when it is night.

And just here we ought to bear in mind that the true measurement of life is not duration.

We live in deeds, not breaths--it is not time; it is intensity that is life's measurement.

Twelve hours of joy, what a brief space they are! Twelve hours of pain, what an eternity! 

We take the equal hours which the clock gives, and we mold them in the matrix of our hearts.

Was it the dawn that crimsoned in the east as Romeo stood with Juliet at the window? It seemed but a moment since the casement opened, and--"It is my lady, O it is my love."

But to the sufferer tossing on her sickbed and hearing every hour the chiming in the dark, that night went wearily with feet of lead, and it seemed as if the dawn would never break.

Are there not twelve hours in the day? said Jesus--yet Jesus died when He was thirty-three.

The dial of GOD has got no minute hands; its hours are measured by service and by sacrifice.

Call no life fragmentary. Call it not incomplete.

Think thee how love abbreviates the hours. If GOD be love, time may be fiery-footed, and the goal be won far earlier than we ever dreamed.


~George H. Morrision~