"In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth " (Ps. 90:6).
Our life, brief and uncertain as it is, seems to be long as we look upon it as a whole. A year seems a long time, and ere we are aware, it has slipped through our fingers; and so with the entire life. The scripture we have quoted gives the day, the briefest natural division of time, as the figure of that life. How quickly does morning pass to noon, and noon darken to evening. How brief is life. "We spend our years as a tale that is told."
And yet procrastination would rob us of its brief hours with the thought that "to-morrow shall be as
to-day and much more abundant." It is this that encourages the sinner to despise the offers of grace and to be heedless of the warning, " to-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts;" nor are saints less exempt from the snare. True, through grace, they have been saved, their future in heaven is assured. But this only exposes them to the snare of the enemy, who would prevent in every way their usefulness in this world.
How solemn is the thought that "we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ." With what unavailing sorrow will the Lord's redeemed ones look back upon a misspent life.
But may there not be help in the thought suggested by our subject? Our life is but a day; and each day is a sample of our whole life. Do we wish to know how we are spending our life? let us examine the history of a single day. It will be found to give a miniature of the life. Are the loins girded, are opportunities seized, are temptations resisted? What place has Christ in our hearts this day ? what place has the word of God in our thoughts? It will be found that the history of a day will give the history of the life.
Take the current of a river at any point-the direction in which it is flowing-and you will have the general course of the river. Is there not mercy in this? Does not God thus give us an opportunity of, as it were, testing our lives daily-not surely for self-complacency-but to know how our life is passing.
Dear reader, this day's record of your life tells its whole story. Is it what it should be? Do you expect at some time to make a change? Ah! to-day, not even to-morrow, is the time to let our life be what it should be. How many lives are being practically wasted by the aimless drifting that is so common.