ONE'S BEST IS ENOUGH by Congregationalist

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 46.

ONE'S BEST IS ENOUGH.

By Congregationalist

SOMETIMES the lesson is hard to be learned, that all which God asks of anyone is to do one's very best. We look back on a given experience, whether it has been happy or sorrowful, and although we are conscious of having made our utmost endeavors, we seem to see how what we felt obliged to leave undone might have been done, or how what we did do might have been done more skillfully and usefully. There is no pain keener than that which conscientious persons often feel because of the revelations which the present thus occasionally makes concerning the past, and the bitterest element of it is the fact that these bitter things really might have been accomplished.

But there is no need of remorse, or even of regret. Whether it actually were possible or not to act and succeed, as it now appears to have been, makes no difference. If we did all with the light which we then possessed revealed to us as involved in our duty, and if what we did was done honestly in the best way open to us, then we did all which we could have done, and may rest in peace. God's best and our best usually are two quite different things, and it is only the latter for doing which he holds us responsible. To allow ourselves to become morbid and miserable for not having attained an impossible ideal of conduct is a sin.

Nevertheless two facts must be accepted unquestionably. We may not be happy or even content unless we truly have done our very best. Nothing other or less than this, as a sensitive and enlightened conscience decides, can be accepted as a substitute. Nobody must delude himself into playing the hypocrite. Furthermore, our best must grow better continually. We must welcome and use the new light, the fresh knowledge which comes to us, raising our standard steadily, and using every success, whether complete or partial, as a stepping-stone to something better.—Congregationalist.