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The care and diligence due to our ordinary business are very
different from solicitude, anxiety and restlessness. The Angels
care for our salvation and seek it diligently, but they are wholly
free from anxiety and solicitude, for, whereas care and diligence
naturally appertain to their love, anxiety would be wholly
inconsistent with their happiness; for although care and diligence
can go hand in hand with calmness and peace, those angelic
properties could not unite with solicitude or anxiety, much less
with over-eagerness.
Therefore, my daughter, be careful and diligent in all your
affairs; God, Who commits them to you, wills you to give them your
best attention; but strive not to be anxious and solicitous, that
is to say, do not set about your work with restlessness and
excitement, and do not give way to bustle and eagerness in what
you do;--every form of excitement affects both judgment and
reason, and hinders a right performance of the very thing which
excites us.
Our Lord, rebuking Martha, said, "Thou art careful and troubled
about many things." (1) If she had been simply careful, she would
not have been troubled, but giving way to disquiet and anxiety,
she grew eager and troubled, and for that our Lord reproved her.
The rivers which flow gently through our plains bear barges of
rich merchandise, and the gracious rains which fall softly on the
land fertilise it to bear the fruits of the earth;--but when the
rivers swell into torrents, they hinder commerce and devastate the
country, and violent storms and tempests do the like.
No work done with impetuosity and excitement was ever well
done, and the old proverb, "Make haste slowly," is a good one, (2)
Solomon says, "There is one that laboureth and taketh pains, and
maketh haste, and is so much the more behind;" (3) we are always
soon enough when we do well. The bumble bee makes far more noise
and is more bustling than the honey bee, but it makes nought save
wax--no honey; just so those who are restless and eager, or full
of noisy solicitude, never do much or well. Flies harass us less
by what they do than by reason of their multitude, and so great
matters give us less disturbance than a multitude of small
affairs.
Accept the duties which come upon you quietly, and try to
fulfil them methodically, one after another. If you attempt to do
everything at once, or with confusion, you will only cumber
yourself with your own exertions, and by dint of perplexing your
mind you will probably be overwhelmed and accomplish nothing.
In all your affairs lean solely on God's Providence, by means
of which alone your plans can succeed. Meanwhile, on your part
work on in quiet co-operation with Him, and then rest satisfied
that if you have trusted entirely to Him you will always obtain
such a measure of success as is most profitable for you, whether
it seems so or not to your own individual judgment.
Imitate a little child, whom one sees holding tight with one
hand to its father, while with the other it gathers strawberries
or blackberries from the wayside hedge. Even so, while you gather
and use this world's goods with one hand, always let the other be
fast in your Heavenly Father's Hand, and look round from time to
time to make sure that He is satisfied with what you are doing, at
home or abroad. Beware of letting go, under the idea of making or
receiving more--if He forsakes you, you will fall to the ground at
the first step.
When your ordinary work or business is not specially
engrossing, let your heart be fixed more on God than on it; and if
the work be such as to require your undivided attention, then
pause from time to time and look to God, even as navigators who
make for the haven they would attain, by looking up at the heavens
rather than down upon the deeps on which they sail. So doing, God
will work with you, in you, and for you, and your work will be
blessed.
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