Chapter 12—Sparks from a Live Wire

The people who are doing the most for others are those who are finding sweet and precious things in the Bible.FF 114.1

If a man falls down seven times seven, and has a disposition to get up again, he will be saved in the kingdom of God.FF 114.2

The self-sufficient worker may seem to be moving the world, but it is the humble, praying worker that moves heaven.FF 114.3

Circumstances can only bring out of us what is already in us. You cannot draw water from a well when there is no water in it.FF 114.4

Begin each day with prayer, and do not let a day pass without doing some active soul-saving work, whether you feel like it or not.FF 114.5

God is in the saving business. He desires to carry every one of us through, but He cannot save us against our wills.FF 114.6

The best way to help a careless and indifferent sinner is for you to be neither careless nor indifferent in dealing with him.FF 114.7

Trouble is an effectual remedy, and when everything else fails sometimes the Lord has to apply this remedy in order to save us.FF 115.1

Our Father looks after His children, and being infinite He can look after the smallest things as well as the greatest things connected with our lives.FF 115.2

We can never do a great work unless we put into it a part of our lives. Extract of soul must be mingled with every work that is to go into eternity.FF 115.3

If God has put into your soul a desire to work for humanity, remember He will help you to carry out this desire, for God never trifles with a man.FF 115.4

The very difficulties which we daily encounter, if patiently borne, will help us to become so well qualified, so well trained, that we will be better able to work for the Master.FF 115.5

If God can make a beautiful flower out of a handful of black earth, He can take our useless lives and so transform them that they shall become beautiful and helpful. It is the same process exactly.FF 115.6

If we can only learn that every circumstance which arises, God permits for our good, then life will become more settled. We can live a day at a time, and strive to make someone better for our having lived that day.FF 116.1

Suppose you should go to a person who has jaundice and say, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for looking so yellow.” That would be a cruel thing to do. But haven't you seen people treat those who had spiritual jaundice in just that way?FF 116.2

The hands of a clock are always in sight—the wheels are seen but seldom. Each is a part of the clock. Some of us are brought face to face with the public; others work silently and in comparative seclusion; but all alike are a part of God’s plan, and each has his part to perform in keeping the work going.FF 116.3

Let no one forget that just as certainly as God has a place for us in the next world, He has a work for us in this world; and in many instances we do not have to leave home in order to get a chance to do it.FF 116.4

Jacob, when viewed under the microscope, is a rascal and a grafter, but when viewed through the telescope, he is a man that can look into heaven, prevail with God, and a father to great nations. Are you viewing your associates through a microscope or through a telescope?FF 117.1

In spite of the law of gravitation, the trees, by the law of growth, are enabled to carry barrels of water scores of feet above the surface of the earth. So the Christian inspired by the divine power within him, is enabled in spite of depressing influences daily to elevate his thoughts and ambitions heavenward.FF 117.2

A young man said to Phillips Brooks in his latter years, “How I wish I had lived in your time, so that I might have had a chance to do some heroic thing.” And the old man answered with something of the fire of his youth, “Young man, you are living in my time and in God’s time. There never was such a chance to do heroic things as now.”FF 117.3

When Peter was working for a cause rather than for humanity, he cut off the servant’s ear, thus making it necessary for Christ to follow after him, and heal the difficulty which he had created. If we work for humanity from any other motive than that of pure love, we shall fill the minds of people so full of prejudice that we shall virtually be repeating Peter’s work, thus making it necessary for Christ to raise up others to follow us to heal the wounds which we have made; and even then, there are scars that must necessarily remain.FF 117.4

Every live man with a gift must divide it with others, or pay the penalty of having it shrink away and finally shrivel up altogether. Hoarding a talent is a greater curse to its possessor than hoarding money. It is what we give away that we really keep. The knowledge that we have some one else to teach is a stimulant to our own gift, and furnishes us a constant incentive for treasuring up live facts and valuable items which we otherwise would give only a passing notice and which would soon pass from our memory.FF 118.1