O-C S 8) The gracious ministry of helpfulness Isa 41:6

Morrison loved this verse: 'Each helps the other and says to his brother, "Be strong!" (Isa 41:6).  He admires a tombstone with this epitaph: 'George Philip Tyson, Died October 7th 1871. He was a helpful man'. Just that  

1. This is a universal ministry...each helps the other.  This sweet ministry of helpfulness is one that is possible for everyone ..it links with everyone. Everyone.  A minister said to a little girl: You will be a great help to your mother some day, and she said 'I'm a great help now!'

2. It calls for quiet discipline. It does not come by nature. You have to be thoughtful to be kind.  If you are always saying 'I can't be bothered', you will never be a helpful person. People who never look out for what is good, like blow-flies, always settle on some little festering spot...My dear friend, don't you be like that. Life's a hard business for the best of us, those who keep a smile upon their faces. It is a poor ambition to belong to the society of critics. 

3. It is a very undistinguished lowly ministry.  Great services reveal your possibility, small services reveal your consecration, and it is consecration that the Lord wants.  He quotes Wordsworth (a sure sign of an older preacher!) 'The best part of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love'.

4, It is always an unconscious ministry.  Every battle that you bravely fight, every temptation that you meet, every burden that you quietly carry, every sorrow you come smiling through is helping others when you never dream of it. 'Character' said Mr. Moody,' is what you are in the dark'.  I do not know anything in life that has got such powerful reactions on yourself.  If you want to be happy....the one great secret is to be a helpful man.