Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Lifes Big Issues | Page 6

day was pretty much like another. Sometimes, perhaps, the fishing was good, sometimes not so good. Life was just a day to day affair, and rather disappointing somehow, to souls with capacity for so much larger and finer things. Suddenly the Master, the Creator and Proprietor of the world, appeared and said: "Boys, it's a dull life at best--just fishing for fish; come and join me in a really big and worth-while task--fishing for men!"
And those four men caught the vision and followed Jesus. Life for them took on a new meaning that day. Instead of a daily grind it became an inspiring program with a grand objective.
I am glad that God is so great and that His plans are so large that He is still calling out men to share them with Him and work out their fulfillment. And you and I, if we are wise, will gladly hear that call and promptly respond, for we will realize that the transient things we daily seek are not sufficient to give us any real or permanent satisfaction, and that we have a capacity for larger and better things.
Oh, I don't suppose we can all be ministers and missionaries, though many of us may have that highest of all privileges, but we shall also find that a merchant's life can be so planned as to be a means of rich service to God; that a lawyer, after all, can be a force for Christ's kingdom; that an engineer can lay out his life-work so as to make straight the path and level the road for the King; that a school-teacher can use his influence to bring pupils to the Master Teacher; that a physician has peculiar opportunity to quicken the spiritual lives of his patients; and that any legitimate occupation can be made to serve man's chief end, which is "to glorify God and enjoy him forever."
And when you and I catch and follow that vision of our life task, whatever it is, the whole plant changes, whether our job is in the shop or in the office, or on the farm or in the schoolroom or pulpit, because we have tasted of the power and fellowship of a Spirit-filled life and a God-used career.
Listen, fellows, He stands now in the morning of life, on the shore of your little lake and calls you to a wonderful partnership!
Let's follow Him!
_Read Matthew 4:18-22._

VI
SHOWING OFF
Say, fellows, it's great fun to "show off." Honest now, isn't that so? If you've got some rare thing the other fellows haven't got, what fun to have them come from all over the block to go up in the attic with you to see it and watch you "work it"!
I knew a boy who made an airplane. Of course it was just a toy, but it had all the parts. He had gotten a pattern from a mechanical magazine, with explicit instructions; he scoured around and got the dozen or more materials necessary, then worked for days and some nights in the basement. Finally, the thing was completed. It had a twist-rubber propeller, and would actually fly a little--not much. But it was a thing of beauty, and its varnished butterfly planes spread majestically and glistened in the sunlight. There were the stays and the rudder, the pilot's seat and the complicated triggers by which it was supposed to be governed. Well, the boys came from far and near to look at it, and the biggest fun the owner had was showing it to some new boy who hadn't seen it before. That is all right, too, if you do it in the proper spirit, but nobody likes to see a fellow get "cocky" over his luck, no matter how good or how rare it is.
Solomon had the show stuff all right. The Queen of Sheba heard about it away down south in her African kingdom, and came many miles with a caravan of camels to see for herself. This man Solomon was a wonder. He answered her best riddles without batting an eyelash--and she had some corking hard riddles, too. When she tired of testing him he showed his wonderful house, his gorgeous throne of ivory overlaid with gold, his great flocks and herds for his household table, his army of servants, his courtly ministers, his treasuries piled with gold, and a hundred other sights richer and finer than she had ever known.
But the big event of that show day was the temple! Of course it was, for Solomon had made it the biggest and finest thing in the kingdom. Even if he hadn't told her she would have seen that. And there was but one way to explain it: Solomon's God, to whom the temple had been built, was the secret of Solomon's glory and power.