Anxious for nothing,
    Thankful for anything,
    Prayerful about everything.

He Touched Her Hand.

One morning on waking, a woman charged with the care of a home began thinking of the day’s simple duties.  And as she thought they seemed to magnify and pile up.  There was her little daughter to get off to school with her luncheon.  Some of the church ladies were coming that morning for a society meeting, and she had been planning a dainty luncheon for them.  The maid in the kitchen was not exactly ideal—­yet.  And as she thought into the day her head began aching.

After breakfast, as her husband was leaving for the day’s business, he took her hand and kissed her good-bye.  “Why,” he said, “my dear, your hand is feverish.  I’m afraid you’ve been doing too much.  Better just take a day off.”  And he was gone.  And she said to herself, “A day off!  The idea!  Just like a man to think that I could take a day off.”  But she had been making a habit of getting a little time for reading and prayer after breakfast.  Pity she had not put it in earlier, at the day’s very start.  Yet maybe she could not.  Sometimes it is not possible.  Yet most times it is possible, by planning.

Now she slipped to her room and, sitting down quietly, turned to the chapter in her regular place of reading.  It was the eighth of Matthew.  As she read she came to the words, “And He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she arose and ministered unto Him.”  And she knelt and breathed out the soft prayer for a touch of the Master’s hand upon her own.  And it came as she remained there a few moments.  And then with much quieter spirit she went on into the day.

The luncheon for the church ladies was not quite so elaborate as she had planned.  There came to her an impulse to tell her morning’s experience.  She shrank from doing it.  It seemed a sacred thing.  They might not understand.  But the impulse remained and she obeyed it, and quietly told them.  And as they listened there seemed to come a touch of the Spirit’s presence upon them all.  And so the day was a blessed one.  Its close found her husband back again.  And as he greeted her he said quietly, “My dear, you did as I said, didn’t you?  The fever’s gone.”

Gideon’s Band:  Sifted for Service.

    God Wants the Best. 
    God’s Use of Weak Things. 
    Call for Volunteers. 
    A Willing People. 
    Courageous Volunteers. 
    Irresistible Logic. 
    Hot Hearts. 
    God Still Sifting.

Gideon’s Band:  Sifted for Service.

(1 Corinthians i:18-31; Judges vi and vii.)

God Wants the Best.

Salvation is for all.  Service is for those chosen for it.  All may serve.  That all do not is simply because service requires qualities which all do not have.  Yet, again, all may have them who will, for the required qualities are heart qualities.  And every one of us can cultivate the heart qualities.  There is special service, chiefly of leadership, requiring brain qualities as well as heart.  But the Master attends to the choosing of men for such service.