Christ's Fretlessness

John 11:9  Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
 
Then lastly, and in a word or two, our text illuminates Christ's fretlessness.

For never was there a life of such untiring labor that breathed such a spirit of unruffled calm.

We talk about our busy modern city, and many of us are busy in the city, but for a life of interruption and distraction, give me the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Some of us could hardly live without the hills--a day in their solitude is benediction;

But when Jesus retired to that fellowship of lonely places, even there He was pressed and harassed by the crowd.

Every day was thronged with incident or danger. There was no leisure so much as to eat.

Now He was teaching--now He was healing--now He was parrying some cruel attack.

Yet through it all, with all its stir and movement, there is a brooding calm upon the heart of Christ that is only comparable to a waveless sea asleep in the stillness of a summer evening. 

Some men are calm because they do not feel. We call it quiet, and it is callousness.

But Christ being sinless was infinitely sensitive--quick to respond to every touch and token.

Yet He talked without contradiction of His peace--"My peace that the world cannot give or take away"--and down in the depths of that unfathomed peace was the thought of the twelve hours in the day.

Christ knew that if God had given Him a twelve hours' work, God would give Him the twelve hours to do it in.

To every task its time, and to every time its task, that was one great method of the Master.

And no man will ever be calm as Christ was calm who cannot halt in the midst of the stir and say, "My peace"; who cannot stop for a moment in the busiest whirl and say to himself, "My times are in Thy hand."

God never blesses unnecessary labor. That is the labor of the thirteenth hour.

All that God calls us to and all that love demands is fitted with perfect wisdom to the twelve.

Therefore be restful; do not be nervous and fussy; leave a little leisure for smiling and for sleep.

There is no time to squander, but there is time enough--are there not twelve hours in the day?

~George H. Morrision~