the great doing of little things

“Let’s say you are a person of ordinary ability, and languishing like a wood-bird in its cage. It’s likely you will never move into a wider sphere than the obscure one you have been in. Give up your useless regret, your discontented complaint, & begin to meet the call of the insignificant & ordinary with faith in God that He is doing His best for you. Meet the call with tenderness to each person you encounter with heroic courage & unswerving fidelity, with patience, thoroughness, & submission.

Go on acting in this way week in & week out, year by year, with no thought about what other people think, determined always to be your best, eager only to pay out without holding back the gold of a noble, unselfish heart. At the end of life, though you don’t realize that your face glows, others will see you shining like the sun in your heavenly Father’s kingdom. At that time, you will discover that you have unwittingly lived a great life, and you will be greeted on the threshold of heaven with the “Well done” of your Lord.”

—F.B. Meyer in Light on Life’s Duties, 1895