­­Being and Doing – 15 September – Day by Day

HAVE we found that anxiety about possible consequences increased the clearness of our judgment, made us wiser and braver in meeting the present, and arming ourselves for the future?…   If we had prayed for this day’s bread, and left the next to itself, if we had not huddled our days together, not allotting to each its appointed task, but ever deferring that to the future, and drawing upon the future for its own troubles, which must be met when they come whether we have anticipated them or not, we should have found a simplicity and honesty in our lives, a capacity for work, an enjoyment in it, to which we are now, for the most part, strangers.

F. D. MAURICE

To shape the whole future is not our problem; but only to shape faithfully a small part of it, according to rules already known.   It is perhaps possible for each of us, who will with due earnestness enquire, to ascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought to do; this let him, with true heart, do, and continue doing.   The general issue will, as it has always done, rest well with a Higher Intelligence than ours…   This day thou knowest ten commanded duties, seest in thy mind ten things which should be done for one that thou doest!   Do one of them;  this of itself will show thee ten others which can and shall be done.

CARLYLE

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These quotes are from ‘Being and Doing’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1908 for members of the Being and Doing Guild whose object is to do all they can for the relief of suffering and misery.

Most of the writers are 19th Century Christians from Britain and Europe who were committed to living their faith through deeds as well as words – Being AND Doing.

For many years these words have kept me company and encouraged me on the journey of faith.  I hope they will encourage others also.