Exodus 38:23

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"And with him was ." Exodus 38:23 .

Sometimes an age is gathered up into some one great representative name. We do not always see the under-workers; we speak of the great man and forget the small one. The Bible is always just in this particular. It does not so raise up any one man as to deny to assistants and colleagues their mete of recognition and praise. God knows every worker, however obscure. He knows who put every knob and loop into the tabernacle which he is daily building. It is enough for the obscure man that he should work with the leader's comrade. He feels pride in his association with his great leader. They could not exchange places. There is a fitness of things in the allotment of service to different men, and of different men to different positions. There should be no rivalry, envy, or bitterness: it is one tabernacle that is being built for the glory of one God, and therefore to have anything whatsoever to do with it, however humble, is honour enough for the greatest of men. The greater the man the more ready will he be to recognise the assistance of others. Inspiration is not to consummate in the direction of self-worship, or even in the direction of splendid service; it takes in the cooperation, sympathy and assistance of others, and makes the most of them. The life-tabernacle is a wondrous building; there is room for workers of all kinds in the uprearing of its mysterious and glorious walls. If we cannot do the greatest work, we may do the least: our heaven will come out of the realisation of the fact that it was God's tabernacle we were building, and under God's blessing that we were working.