LIFE by Eva Bell | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 30, 1876

LIFE

By Eva Bell

What a wonderful thing is life? How utterly beyond the reach of man to give it, or even to comprehend what it is! None but the great Infinite can bestow this wonderful gift. We feel it thrill through our whole being; by its power we live and move, and by the same power the mind, that wonderful piece of mechanism, is made to act.

Life is indeed a great gift, but it is, nevertheless, one which is but poorly appreciated by many of us. It is given to us for some good purpose. Is it that we may spend it in idleness, and in ministering only to self? Nay, in so doing we show ingratitude to the giver. We would not think of so misusing the gift of an earthly friend; neither does God bestow his gifts that we may waste them and trample them beneath our feet.

And again, we do not realize by how frail a thread life hangs, nor how slight a tension will snap asunder the delicate cord. To-day we live and move among our fellow-beings in the full exercise of all our faculties of mind and body; to-morrow we may lie silent and cold, realizing and feeling as little as though we had never breathed; for the house in which this life dwells is but dust, and when the life-power leaves it, only the dumb clay remains. The body may be as perfect as when the person lived, but it cannot move, think, or realize, simply because this all-animating life-power is extinct.

The question naturally arises as to whether this is the last of man; for to all human discernment he is as if he had never been. Man is powerless to restore life; and were it not for the infinitely greater gift of God to us, we must ever sleep in death. But he has given us his dear Son, through whom we may again live. Jesus triumphed over the grave. To him have been committed the keys of death and of hell, and he is able to loose their captives. The life which he will give, can no man take away. It will continue throughout all the ages of eternity.

But there is a condition with which we must comply in order to obtain this great boon. It is this: We must improve the life which is now given us if we would have that which is to come.

How this is to be done may be illustrated by one of the parables given by our Saviour. A certain lord gave to his servants talents, and went into a far country. When he returned he called those servants, and inquired concerning the talents he had entrusted to their care. To those who had made good use of them, he gave still greater gifts; but to him who had made no use of his lord’s money, he gave nothing, but took away even that which he had. So will it be with us. God is not mocked, and if we misuse this great and wonderful gift by spending it all in self-gratification and indulgence, we will have it taken away, and no other life will be given us. We shall die, never to live again,—yes, die as we might have lived—eternally.

Let us then try so to use this gift of life, that, when we are called to yield it up to Him who gave it, we may do so, feeling that it has not been for naught that it was bestowed, and hoping for that eternal life which will be given to the overcomers.

EVA BELL.