“Let us accept the allotments of Divine Providence— our varied spheres in life—at the hands of Him who fixes the bounds of our habitation.
How many there are who have a strange, perverse satisfaction in looking out from their window, with longing eyes, on one or other of the varied modern shapes which Naboth’s vineyard assumes!
Their soliloquy is—’Were it mine, what a vintage I would have there! What oil and wine I would have from these grapes and olive trees; and what a prudent and bountiful use I would make of them, which their present possessor never does!’
God says to such, ‘No, O dreamer of vain dreams, remain no longer gazing through a false and distorted medium. Envy no longer your neighbor’s choicer territory.
Go cheerfully down to your own assigned, though more restricted, garden-plot. It may have neither vines nor olives. It may be devoid of floral wealth. It may be
possessed of nothing but the commonest plants. But there is your place! It may be “little among the thousands of Judah.” It is that, nevertheless, which I have staked and fenced out for you. I have not made you keeper of others’ vineyards; see that your own vineyard you do keep. You can serve Me and glorify Me with the one entrusted talent, as well as with the ten. On the Great Day there will be as ample a recognition of faithfulness over the few things as over the many things.’
By Him the mite is accepted; and the heart—when there is no mite to give.”
John MacDuff, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour