WILLINGNESS
TO SERVE GOD
The English poet John Milton (1608-1674) was a great moralist
and devotee of God. He believed that everybody is born with some talent which
he must use to serve God. Not to use that talent is a religious aberration.
But Milton also poses a question in his sonnet
On His Blindness.“ Doth God “exact
day labour, light denied?” This question is related to his becoming totally blind
at the age of about fortythree. He was a
talented poet and it was through poetry that he was bound to serve God.
Milton’s personal question is the
question of all disabled persons. He answers this question in the following
words:
“God doth not need either man’s work
or his own gifts. Who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.”
As for who are the best bearers of
God’s mild yoke, his answer is -- who are patient during their disability and are still willing to serve. Their current disability to serve is not a false excuse but
a hard fact.
Milton was against disobedience to God’s
impositions. His long poem Paradise Lost begins
with the following words:
“Of Man’s first disobedience, and
the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the
World, and all our woe, with loss of Eden”
Finally, the full text of the sonnet On His
Blindness:
When
I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To
serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his
own gifts; who best
Bear his mild
yoke, they serve him best.
They also serve who only stand
and wait.”
*************
G.R.Kanwal
14 May 2025
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