| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 24 |
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Then, sometimes the work does not succeed – we have many failures. We find also competition and rivalry. Other people contest every inch of the ground with us. If we are in business, the competition is usually very sharp and keen. Sometimes we meet with meanness and dishonesty, too, in those who are our rivals. They are not always willing to apply the Golden Rule to their business methods. All this makes it hard for us to meet the life of the other days. It is not easy for us to keep cheerful in spirit, and to maintain gentle feelings, as we mover through these trying experiences.
The other days also bring to us, to appeal to our human nature, forms of amusement and pleasure which do not usually tempt us on Sunday. Most of us are in a measure shut away from the world on the Lord’s Day. Our Christian habits are our protection. We spend the day in religious services, and in duties of love which fill hand and heart. We scarcely think of the great world outside, with its throbbing life and its sin and sorrow. Our environment for the day is so kindly, so full of spiritual help, so friendly to devotion, so warm and congenial, as almost to make us forget that we are in a world where temptation assails, where evil rules. But as we go out on Monday, we find ourselves suddenly in contact with all manner of worldly influences. The very atmosphere is antagonistic to spirituality. It is as if we had passed suddenly from a tropical summer into arctic winter. It is not easy to live the holy life of a Christian amid the scenes and experiences of the weekdays.
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