Why is it that God has such an absolute and all-embracing claim to ourselves and to all that is ours? It is because we are made by Him, and not only made, but created. We are His, not only as the statue is the sculptor's and the picture the painter's, but He made out of nothing the very materials of which we consist. There is therefore nothing in us which is not God's. Every sort of excellence, strength, virtue, talent, beauty, skill energy, affection--all are God's not our own.

God created every one with certain gifts of his own that He did not give to another, and He gave him those gifts to do a special work that God had for him to do. He created me with a certain object; from all eternity He had been planning my soul and body, and providing me with all that I needed, that both one and the other might serve Him. Have I on the whole carried out God's plan? Shall I be able to say, when I come to die: "I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do?"

What a serious thought this is, that God had a plan for my life! He meant me to occupy a certain position in society and to have certain employments; to influence certain persons for good; to overcome certain temptations; to practise certain virtues beyond the rest to attain a certain place in Heaven. Has my life been ordered by God's holy inspirations; has not my own self-will too often had part in it?

Pray that you may not fail in fulfilling God's intentions concerning you.