_I_, poor creature that
I sometimes seem to others and always to myself, am so composed that God
never before had anything exactly like me in the whole round of His
creation. My value lies in a special blend of potentialities. Of the
billions and trillions of human beings who have passed across this
planet not one could ever have done what I can do, or have filled my
place toward God and His designs.
Among the billions and trillions I may seem trivial--to men. I may even
seem trivial to myself. To such numbers as these I can add so little
when I come, and take away so little from them when I go, that I am not
worth counting. Quite so--to all human reckoning. But my value is not my
value to men; it is not even my value to myself; it is my value to God.
He alone knows my use, and the peculiar beauty I bring to the ages in
making my contribution. It is no presumptuous thing to say that He could
no more spare me than any other father of a normal and loving family
could spare one of the children of his flesh and blood.
Now, my value to God is my first reckoning. We commonly make it the
last, if we ever make it at all; but it is the first and the ruling one.
What I am to my family, my country, myself, is all secondary. They
determine only the secondary results. The first results come from my
first relationship, and my first relationship is to God.
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