Methuselah and Jesus: A Contrast

Old Methuselah lived for 900 years, and never said a word worth putting down in the Bible. He lived for nine centuries and never did a single act worth reporting. He vegetated like a tree that was not living. Jesus Christ was only here for three years of public life and His name has gone through the earth, filled heaven with its praise, and His deeds shall be spoken of throughout the ages of eternity.

Only three years! Life is yours to fill it with helpfulness, with kindness to act your part so that you can look back upon it with pleasure, not with remorse, saying with Lord Byron, “It is not anything that I have done that troubles me, but it is what I might have been.”

Ah, well thou mightest have said that with thy brilliant genius — what thou mightest have been! How the saying seems to toll the knell of a lost opportunity. Life is yours to fill it as Christ filled it with noble deeds of help to others, and then you can say when it comes to its close, “It is finished.”