The Hidden Ones

Many came to him and began to say, “John performed no miraculous sign, but everything John said about this man was true!” (John 10:41)

 

You may be very discontented with yourself. You are no genius, have no brilliant gifts, and are inconspicuous for any special faculty. Mediocrity is the law of your existence. Your days are remarkable for nothing but sameness and insipidity. Yet you may live a great life.

 

John did no miracle, but Jesus said that among those born of women there had not appeared a greater than he.

 

John’s main business was to bear witness to the Light, and this may be yours and mine. John was content to be only a voice, if men would think of Christ.

 

Be willing to be only a voice, heard but not seen; a mirror whose surface is lost to view, because it reflects the dazzling glory of the sun; a breeze that springs up just before daylight, and says, “The dawn! the dawn!” and then dies away.

 

Do the commonest and smallest things as beneath His eye. If you must live with uncongenial people, set to their conquest by love. If you have made a great mistake in your life, do not let it becloud all of it; but, locking the secret in your breast, compel it to yield strength and sweetness.

 

We are doing more good than we know, sowing seeds, starting streamlets, giving men true thoughts of Christ, to which they will refer one day as the first things that started them thinking of Him; and, of my part, I shall be satisfied if no great mausoleum is raised over my grave, but that simple souls shall gather there when I am gone, and say,

 

“He was a good man; he wrought no miracles, but he spake words about Christ, which led me to know Him for myself.”
—George Matheson

 

“THY HIDDEN ONES” (Psa. 83:3)

 

“Thick green leaves from the soft brown earth, 

Happy springtime hath called them forth; 

First faint promise of summer bloom 

Breathes from the fragrant, sweet perfume, 

Under the leaves.

 

“Lift them! what marvelous beauty lies 

Hidden beneath, from our thoughtless eyes! 

Mayflowers, rosy or purest white, 

Lift their cups to the sudden light, 

Under the leaves.

 

“Are there no lives whose holy deeds—

Seen by no eye save His who reads 

Motive and action—in silence grow 

Into rare beauty, and bud and blow 

Under the leaves?

 

“Fair white flowers of faith and trust, 

Springing from spirits bruised and crushed; 

Blossoms of love, rose-tinted and bright, 

Touched and painted with Heaven’s own light 

Under the leaves.

 

“Full fresh clusters of duty borne, 

Fairest of all in that shadow grown; 

Wondrous the fragrance that sweet and rare 

Comes from the flower-cups hidden there 

Under the leaves.

 

“Though unseen by our vision dim, 

Bud and blossom are known to Him; 

Wait we content for His heavenly ray—

Wait till our Master Himself one day 

Lifteth the leaves."

 

“God calls many of His most valued workers from the unknown multitude” (Luke 14:23).

~L. B. Cowman~