A Life Well Lived

A life well lived is not gauged by what we may get out of it but by what we put into it. Why did Saul of Tarsus find so much joy in the new direction towards which his life now tended, and from which he could not have derived one iota of pleasure before? The reason was that he was giving himself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of the goal which he realised was the end of his new career. Without stint, and indefatigably, he gave himself, sparing neither body not brain in a lavish outpouring of every faculty for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. He who lives thus is not only getting the most out of life, but is laying up a store of pleasurable memories against a time to come when days of active service will be over. The knowledge of this made radiant the prison of the servant of Christ as he afterwards wrote that he had finished his course. We who live in the light of his experience and the testimony of others may well pause and consider if we are not too often, in these days of worldly mindedness, robbing ourselves of the pleasure which is the unalienable portion of all who so live, and, at the same time, denying ourselves the only light which will make glad the days of enforced inactivity. The hour of our departure may be all the brighter if we can look back and witness to the fact that we have given more to the world than it has given to us.