Present Opportunities by P. L. Hilliard

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 4, 1873

Present Opportunities.

By P. L. Hilliard

With many of us much time has been criminally wasted. The present is all that we can surely claim, and is therefore the most precious time of all. The present time is ours in which to do with our might what our hands find to do, of good acts, kind acts, benevolent acts, for God and our fellow-men, of which, if we are awake to discern them, there are enough to be done.

With some of us, there is an inclination, almost irresistible, to shun responsibilities, or to put off till a “more convenient season” the duties of to-day. But those duties which ought to be performed to-day cannot be put off until to-morrow. To-morrow is always one day ahead. To-day is only ours in which to improve present opportunities.

Perchance in mercy some of the opportunities of yesterday may come back to us to-day; that is, we may have the same chances of doing good to-day that we had yesterday; for, as a sage poet has said, “To-day is yesterday returned.” How often have we heard it said, and felt ourselves, “Oh! that I had my life to live over again that I might shun the follies of the past!” Oh! for yesterday to return—to come with power to cancel the mistakes and failures of the past and reinstate us in the way of life.

With us who are associated together here, yesterday has returned, and we should not waste the present by mourning over the past, but, by diligence, strive to redeem it. We have the same opportunities now that we had weeks and months ago, and some, perhaps, that were neglected years ago. May not these that we enjoy to-day share the fate of such, and we be made more wretched for the time which Heaven has graciously given us.

But we must not overlook the little God-given duties. If we would fill our sphere of usefulness in the world, we must be willing to do little things. Says Dr. Johnson, “He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.”

“A little child once illustrated a good idea on this subject. A poor woman had a supply of coal laid at her door by a charitable neighbor. A very little girl came out with a small fire shovel, and began to take up a shovelful at a time and carry it to a sort of bin in the cellar. A gentleman who was passing by said to the child, ‘Do you expect to get all that coal in with that little shovel?’ The child seemed rather confused by the question, but modestly said, ‘Yes, sir, if I work long enough.’”

Thus it is with us. We have great opportunities for doing good, but like the little girl with her small fire shovel our capabilities are limited, and our talents few; yet by working long and diligently, we may accomplish something for the Master, although the time is far spent and the day is at hand. P. L. HILLIARD.

Battle Creek, Mich.