WHILE PASSING THROUGH

Eteinne De Grellet was a French Quaker missionary who wrote:“I shall pass through this world but once, If therefore, there be any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.” I’ve had this quotation taped on the front flyleaf of my Bible for a long time. My hope and prayer is that it will be daily and throughout the rest of my life, the foremost thing in my consciousness and on my heart.

Along these same lines, James Truslow Adams, an American historian and writer, famously wrote, “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.” I remember hearing an old friend of mine, who pastored a church and worked in the iron mines to support his family say one many years ago: “It’s better to give bouquets  (expressions of kindness) to people while they’re living than at their funerals.”

 

I think the Frenchman, the historian/writer and my preacher/miner friend had all learned one of the great secrets to living well—something that is no secret  at all to those who know their Bibles: “And be ye kind one to another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you ” (Eph. 4:32).