From Where We Are

Winter and another year is with us. But sooner than we suppose it will be spring. More suddenly and sooner than we suppose, it will be summer. And soon again the summer will have passed, and soon again we shall be looking at the closing of the calendar, and, soon again we shall be asking ourselves: Where has it gone, and what have we done with it? And it is not too soon to ask ourselves what we will do with our determination to be better than we have been, to do better than we have done. We are all imperfect. We all have problems. We all wish some things were different. In this life it isn’t often (if at all) that anyone finds what could be called a flawlessly ideal situation. But if something doesn’t change that should change, if something doesn’t happen that should happen, it may be because we have somehow supposed that time would do something of itself without our doing something of ourselves. Time does much in its mellowing influence, in its blessed healing process, in its leavening and leveling but in some ways time doesn’t do much but deteriorate unless we do some things for ourselves, unless we improve our past performance. Perfection is a process and neither character nor conditions are altogether made over all at once. The Lord God has given us the truth, the plan, the purposes to work with, life and intelligence and the material things of earth. And by beginning here, we can go on from where we are and come closer to where we would wish to be always remembering that the only place we can start from is where we are and there is no time sooner than now. Blessedly, in the swiftly moving months there is nowhere we cannot begin to go if we will with repentance and work and the faith to begin to bring things about.