The Service Of Passivity

The same unconscious ministry, again, is often a beautiful feature of the sickroom.

Patient suffering may be finest service.

It is told of Dr. Norman Macleod that on one occasion he went to pay a visit to a Sunday school scholar of his own.

He found him stretched upon a sorry bed, for the lad--an invalid--was dying amid scenes of crime and destitution. 

Norman Macleod was not a great preacher; Norman Macleod was a great human.

Stooping over the bed he said, "My poor lad, I'm afraid you're very weak." "Yes, sir," was the reply, "I'm very weak, but I'm strong in Him."

The following Sunday, Dr. Macleod told that story from the pulpit.

It was published in religious newspapers both in England and America.

And by and by, from Scotland, England, and from far-off villages of the United States, came testimonies that the story had been blessed.

Out in the High Street other lads were serving, Men and women were toiling for the Master.

Here in the garret, above the crowded street was a sufferer who would never serve again.

Yet, like Paul and Silas in the dungeon, he sang in his midnight because God was with him, and far away the other prisoners heard.

I have heard women lamenting they were useless because they could never leave their little room.

Others were out and active in the world; they were nothing but cumberers of the ground.

And yet that little chamber was a Bethel, and to enter it was to feel that GOD was there, and through the streets one walked a better man because of that patient beautiful endurance.

Never forget that among life's many ministries, the freest may be the unconscious ministry.

There is an exquisite service of passivity as surely as a service of activity.

When the lights are low, when the strong ones bow themselves, when the silver cord is at the point of breaking, you may be serving better than you know.

~George H. Morrison~