Job 8:7

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase." Job 8:7

So life is not to be judged by its beginning, but by its end. This is true, scientifically as well as morally. We need not doubt that the beginning of all life was small: but who can deny that the development of life has been sure, profound, and beneficent? Man may have had the lowliest possible origin, yet he brings with him a seal higher than human; the very token of God is in his spirit; his very figure is an argument and a suggestion. The text encourages the spirit of hope. The Bible does not incite us towards mere review; it continually calls us to anticipation: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." We might look back until our spirits sickened and all our hope perished in coldness and dismay; but we are to look forward and behold ourselves, sanctified and glorified, the purpose of our manhood in full fruition, and the service of God becoming the very music of our life. There is a review of life which is simply unprofitable; when we have settled that our origin was as low as possible, we have done nothing to encourage the soul, but rather to bring it into self-contempt: but when, in the Spirit of Christ, we forecast the future, seeing what God meant us to be when he created us, then we have an ideal towards which we can grow; we are beckoned by a celestial perfection, and assured that every effort in that direction will be crowned with the fullest reward. This message may be delivered to those who have just begun to believe in the Son of God. The kingdom of God itself is like unto a grain of mustard-seed. At first our faith may be small, hardly indeed distinguishable from unbelief; our prayer may be "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief": but the very fact that we have begun to believe should cheer us, and bring with it the assurance that this faith will grow, until it dominates the whole life and rules the destiny, beyond the reach of temptation or overthrow on the part of the enemy. What man ceases to nurture his body, because his beginning as an infant was small? He does not dwell upon the days when he could neither speak, nor reason, nor help himself: when he looks back, upon those days, it is with wonder that his advance has been so great and so sure; what is true in the flesh is truer still in the spirit; we began at a point almost invisible, but, by the grace of God, we have been trained to some measure of manhood, strength, and dominance. What has been done is but a hint of what may yet be done. "My soul, hope thou in God."