Learning by Doing

“The busy fingers fly, the eyes may see

Only the glancing needle which they hold, But all my life is blossoming inwardly, And every breath is like a litany;

While through each labor like a thread of gold Is woven the sweet consciousness of thee!”

Susan Coolidge.

There is a great deal more in life’s common task-work than we dream. We think of it ofttimes as the dreariest kind of drudgery. Many a man never learns to go to his daily toil with hearty enthusiasm. Many a woman never goes through her household duties but with a weary heart and a feeling of constraint. It is this dulness of life’s common tasks that makes them seem so hard. If people loved them and took them up with delight, they would be light and easy, for love makes anything easy. It is the dreariness of this unending plod and grind that wears out so many lives, not the real burden of it. People are fretted and become discontented as they must go every day over and over the same routine. It seems so idle. Nothing comes of it. Nothing is built up by all this toil, nothing beautiful is made by it. It is weaving ever only to have the web unwoven.

“O trifling tasks so often done,
Yet ever to be done anew!
O cares that come with every sun,

Morn after morn the long years through! We shrink beneath their paltry sway — The irksome calls of every day.

The restless sense of wasted power,
The tiresome round of little things,

Are hard to bear, as hour by hour
Its tedious iteration brings;

Who shall evade, or who delay,

The small demands of every day?”

But is there no better way to look at all this dreary work? Is there no heavenly ray that may illumine it? Is it merely idle iteration? Does nothing come out of it all? Is it in any sense working for Christ? If we will answer these questions in the light of New Testament teaching we shall see that there is a sense in which “drudgery” is indeed “divine,” All this task-work our Father sets for us. This alone will give it grandeur, if we but realize it. “Let us not depreciate earth,” says Lucy Larcom. “There is no atom in it but is alive and astir in the all-penetrating splendor of God.”

“Lo! amid the press, The whirl and hum and pressure of my day, I hear thy garments sweep, thy seamless dress, And close beside my work and weariness

Discern thy gracious form, not far away, But very near, O Lord, to help and bless.”

Besides, this very task-work which to many of us seems so dreary is one of God’s ways of teaching us some of the greatest lessons of life. We are not in this world merely to do the pieces of work, large or small, that are set over against our hand. We are here to grow in strength and beauty of character. And it is not hard to see how this growth may go on continually amid life’s daily toils and cares. If we are diligent, careful, faithful, prompt, accurate, energetic, in the doing of the thousand little things of common life, we are building these qualities meanwhile into our soul’s fabric. Thus we are ever learning by doing, and growing by doing. There is an unseen spiritual building arising within us continually as we plod on in our unending tasks. Negligence in common duties mars our character. Faithfulness in all work builds beauty into the soul.

If we remember this as we go about our dull task-work it will grow bright under our hand. Every little fragment of it will appear as a lesson which our divine Master has set for us, in the learning of which we shall add a new touch to the spiritual temple we are building. There is a blessing in the doing of even the smallest duty. It lifts us a little nearer to God.

This lesson has a very wide application. Our Lord said that he that willeth to do the will of God shall know of the teaching. Doing is therefore a great deal more important in life than we sometimes think. In times past there has been a tendency to exalt believing, not unduly, for believing is always important, but to the disparagement of doing. Even now we are often told that being is more important than doing. But there can be no noble being without noble doing. Character is built up by doing. According to our Lord’s word, knowledge comes through doing. We can get to know more of our Father’s will only by doing what we already know.

We never get to understand the Bible merely by studying it. It will not reveal itself to us until we begin to do what it teaches. He that seeks to obey it shall know it. Many people have the impression that there is something occult and mysterious about the words of the Scriptures. But this impression vanishes if they accept the divine teachings and begin to fashion their lives according to them. Many Christians will readily recall how dim and obscure faith in Jesus Christ seemed to them before they believed, when they were trying to find the way, and then how simple and clear it appeared after they had begun to follow the Saviour.

The same principle is found in other kinds of learning besides that of spiritual truth. A pupil wants to acquire music. He may get books and a teacher and learn all the principles. But he can never become a musician save by practice. So one will never become an artist merely by studying the rules and principles of art; he must take his brush and paint as he studies.

It is the same with the Bible. You read a command with a promise annexed. You say, “I cannot understand that. I cannot see how if I do so and so, this shall be the result.” While this is your attitude, the truth will not become plain to you. But if you accept the teaching as a revealing of a fragment of God’s will for you, and begin to do it, light will break from it. As you obey the teaching, you shall know.

Duties seem hard. We think we cannot do them at all. The door appears shut before us, preventing our progress. But when y?e quietly and in childlike faith move forward, the door opens. The Israelites lay in their camp on the eastern side of the Jordan river. The command came to cross over. They struck their tents and formed their columns, ready to march. But still the river flowed on, with full floods, with no sign of abatement. They began to move — the advance of the host is now only a few steps from the brink. Still the muddy water rushes on. Shall they turn back? Or shall they stand there on the edge of the river and wait for it to pause in its flowing to let them pass through? That is what many people do on the margin of life’s rivers. But no; they willed to do God’s will, and the advance guard of priests, bearing the sacred symbol of God’s presence, paused not, but moved quietly on as though there were no river before them. The moment their feet touched the water’s edge the flood was cut off above, and the channel was emptied. This old fragment of history has its living lesson. If we will to do God’s will we shall find the way open for our feet. The path of duty is never really an obstructed path.

Daily life is full of points where this lesson may find application. One bright morning you give yourself anew to Christ. You resolve to do his will all the day. You will find the will of God not in your Bible only, as you read its words, but in many circumstances and experiences; for remember you are learning by practice, not merely by theory. Something goes wrong at breakfast. Some one says a quick word, needless of course, thoughtless perhaps, even rude it may be. It hurts, and the color flies to your face, the flash of anger to your eye, and the unadvised word to the very door of your lips. But there is a still, small voice which reminds you that you have willed to do God’s will to-day. It is his will that you should keep your heart loving and sweet and not be provoked. Do it and you will learn the sweet meaning throughout all the day, in the blessing that will come to you.

Many of us find our plans broken into continually by what we are apt to call the accidents of life. The mothers in the home are interrupted all day and kept back in their work by their children who clamor for attention, for nursing, for care. Busy men meet constant hindrances which break into their hours and interfere with their plans. Who does not many a time have his day’s beautiful schedule disarranged by little things that come in, without announcement, and claim his thought, his time, his strength? Sometimes we may be disposed to chafe a little at what seems to be interferences with the programme we have mapped out for ourselves in the morning. But we should remember that we are learning by practice. We promised to do God’s will all the day, and these things are God’s will for us. We had left no place for doing things for God, and he had to force them into our well ordered schedule. Susan Coolidge has put this thought in very striking way in one of her poems — “Interrupted.” The day’s plan was made with the resolve that nothing should turn the feet aside.

“But interruptions all day long,
And little vexing hindrances,
Each weak, but all together strong,
Came one by one to fret and tease,
And balk my purpose, and displease.

Friendship laid fetters on the noon,
And fate threw sudden burdens down,

And hours were short, and strength failed soon, And darkness came the day to drown; Hope changed to grief and smile to frown.

Then I said sadly: * All is vain;
No use there is in planning aught.

Labor is wasted once again,
And wisdom is to folly brought,
And all the day has gone for naught.’

Then spoke a voice within my soul: * The day was yours, and will was free,

And self was guide, and self was goal; Each hour was full as hour could be — What space was left, my child, for Me?

1 Where was the moment in your plan

For work of mine which might not wait —

The need, the wish of fellow-man,
The little threads of mutual fate
Which touch and tangle soon or late?

‘These “hindrances” which made you fret, These “interruptions” one by one,

They were but sudden tasks I set, My errands for your feet to run: Will you disdain them, child, or shun?

Oh, blind of heart and dull of soul!
I only felt, the long day through,

That I was thwarted of my goal,
And chafed rebelliously, nor knew
The Lord had aught for me to do.

Forgive me, Lord, my selfish day,

Touch my sealed eyes, and bid them wake

To see thy tasks along the way,

Thy errands, which my hands may take,
And do them gladly for thy sake.”

This is the only way God can get some of us to do anything for him. We have no time for his special work. We leave no little gaps in our schedule in which to do little errands for him. We crowd our hours so full of things for ourselves that we have not a moment left for ministries for Christ. The only way he can get us to do these things is to press them right into the midst of our scheduled hours.

Here is the lesson: These things that we call “interruptions” are little fragments of God’s will breaking into the midst of the plans we had willed for our own pleasure or profit. We have set ourselves for the day to do his will, and we must not turn any of these interruptions away. He knows what he wants us to do. Supposing that we are tired, or that our own work is waiting, or that we are thwarted of our goal, dare we turn away from the service which God is asking of us, — some little ministry to a child, some comfort to a sorrowing one, some gentle touch to a life that will carry the benediction for days, some showing of the path to a bewildered soul that knocks at our door asking the way, some lightening of the burden for one bowed down, — dare we, would we for worlds, turn away what God has sent us — these heavenly ministries, these tasks that angels would leap to do — fiat we may keep on with our own poor little earthly tasks?

We must never forget, at least, that we are learning by doing God’s will, and that God’s will does not all come to us out of a written Bible. Some of it comes fresh from God’s own lips in our life’s circumstances. In whatever way it may come, we are to do it, and in doing it we will find a blessing. Hard tasks and duties are like nuts: they are rough and unsightly, and the hull is not easy to break; but when it is broken we find it full of rich meat.

Once Jesus, tired and hungry, sat down by an old well to rest, while his disciples went to the village to buy food. He was too weary to go with them; but while he sat there exhausted, resting, a woman came to draw water. Weary as he was, he treated her with compassionate interest, entering into conversation with her, leading to spiritual themes, and saving her from her old sinful life.

That fragment of ministry was his Father’s will for that hour. To be sure it broke into his rest, but he forgot his weariness in blessing a sad, lost life. Then when the disciples came with the food he was no longer hungry. They could not understand it. They thought some one must have brought him bread in their absence, but he said in explanation, and the words reveal a blessed secret of the spiritual life, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of... My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” Taking up the duty that came to him, he found in the doing of it real food for his life. It is always so. Do the duty God sends; do it gladly, lovingly, and you will find a blessing wrapped up in it. We get the goodness of divine love by doing the divine will.

Many people complain that they cannot be sure of the right path in life. They are continually coming to points where duty is uncertain. The way before them is dark, even close up to their feet. The horizon seems to shut down like a heavy curtain, or a thick wall, right before them. But here, again, this principle applies: “If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know.” We can learn the path of duty only by walking in it. There is no promise of anything more than this. The word of God is a lamp unto our feet; not a sun to light a hemisphere, but a lamp or a lantern to carry in our hand, to give light unto our feet, to show us just one little step at a time. If we move on, taking the step that lies full in the light, we carry the light forward too, and it then shows us another step. That is, we learn to know the road by walking in it. If we will not take the one step that is made clear, we cannot know the part of the way that is hidden in the shadow. But doing the duty that lies nearest will ever bring us to the next duty. Doing we shall know.

These are but little fragments of a great lesson which has very wide-reaching applications. We may get at least the heart of it, which is, that, doing our duty as it is made clear to us, we shall learn. Do the little of God’s will you now perceive, and he will reveal more and more of it to you. Instead of wondering what mystery the long, unopened future holds for you, take the task, or the ministry of the moment now in sight, and do that.

God’s will is an angel, bearing in his hand a little lamp to light you step by step on your heavenward way, at last bringing you to the door of home. If there are perplexities before you, simply begin to do your duty, — the little of it that is clear, — and the perplexities will vanish. If the task set for you seems impossible, still begin the doing of it. It would not be a duty and be really impossible. God never requires anything he does not intend to help us to do. The giving of a duty always implies strength to do it. In due time the mountain will yield to your faithful strokes. You will learn by doing. Life will brighten as you go on.