“My Peace I Give”

I know that there is such a thing as peace to seek and find. But here is my work to do, to worry over whether I am doing it right, to keep myself restless over how it will turn out. “My work,” I say; but if I can know that it is not my work but God’s, should I not cast away my restlessness, even while I worked on more faithfully and untiringly than ever? If I could pour through all the good plan over which I am laboring the certainty that all that is good in it is God’s and must succeed, how that certainty would drive the darkness out of it! And while I worked harder than ever, my work would have something of the calmness with which he labors always. To every poor sufferer, to every discouraged worker, to every man who cannot think much of himself, and yet is too brave to despair, this is the courage that the gospel gives.

—Phillips Brooks