| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 23 |
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The lesson of “grace for grace,” however, is that one grace is given instead of another. We cannot live today on the strength of yesterday’s food – each day has a portion of its own. Yesterday’s sunshine will not light the earth today, but there is other sunshine ready each new morning. When you were in sorrow a while ago, God came to you and comforted you in wonderful ways – through His promises, or through a human friend who brought you blessing, or through a book whose words were like a heavenly lamp pouring its light upon your darkness. When a new sorrow comes, that old comfort cannot be used again; but you will have other comfort for your new sorrow, comfort in place of the comfort which is past. No grace received from God is ever the last. The time will never come to any child of God when a grace will fade out, and no other one is ready to take its place.
It is not the same grace that is given always, regardless of the person’s need – the same to the little child and to the old man; the same to the mother nursing her baby, and the mother sitting beside her baby’s coffin. “As thy days, so shall thy strength be,” runs the old promise – not the same degree of strength for the day of gladness and the day of sadness, but strength suited to the particular day’s experience. The boy in school needs grace to help him to be true, brave and manly; but he does not need the same grace that he will need when, a little later, as a man, he stands amid life’s battles, facing grave responsibilities and carrying heavy burdens. The young girl in the summer of her joy needs grace that she may live beautifully and sweetly, keeping herself unspotted from the world, making wise choices, and growing into whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure; but she does not need just the same grace that she will require years hence, when her hands are full of hard tasks, when her thoughts are occupied with serious questions, or when her heart is breaking with sorrow.
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