Make Your Mark in the World, September 12
Make Your Mark in the World, September 12
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12.
The period of childhood and youth—how much is bound up in these years of probation! God desires that you shall improve this time, dear youth, by obtaining a fitness for the work. If you need an education, set yourselves to work with a determination to get one. Do not wait for an opening; make one for yourselves. Take hold in any small way that opens before you. Be thorough and faithful in whatever you take in hand, however small it may be.
Some of our youth are so vacillating that they accomplish nothing for themselves; their lifetime is often half spent before they decide what they shall do, and what they will be. They bury their talents beneath a mass of rubbish. To these I would say, Practice economy. Do not spend your means for the gratification of appetite or for pleasure seeking. Make your mark in the world. Have before you the object of becoming as useful and efficient as God calls you to be. As you improve the knowledge you gain, you will be able to gather increased knowledge. Application to your books and useful manual labor, combined with earnest Christian devotion and loyalty to God, will make you men and women in the highest sense. True devotion to God, combined with the study of the sciences, will give the youth an education that will make them gentle, humble lovers of God, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Such souls, fragrant with love for God and for their fellow men, God can use as vessels unto honor.
Jesus died, dear youth, not to save you in your sins, but from your sins. He wants you to follow the example which He has set before you—to deny self, take up your cross daily, and follow Him. He claims your service, your heart’s best and holiest affections. If you will walk in obedience to His will, learning cheerfully and diligently the lessons of His providence, by and by He will say, “Child, come up higher to the heavenly mansions which I have prepared for you.” [262]