WHAT fun it was when we were children, to blow soap bubbles! With our soapsuds and pipes or pipe stems, we were quite happy. Even the youngest, like the little boy standing on the table, thoroughly enjoyed the sport. How wonderful it seemed to see in these bubbles, painted in all the colors of the rainbow, pictures of the neighboring houses, street, trees and other objects.
We took pride, too, in seeing who could blow the biggest ones. Sometimes we had them larger than our heads. But we had to be very careful, for the larger they grew, the more easily they broke. As the bubble grew larger, the outside, or film of the bubble grew thinner and thinner, till a very slight touch or breath of air was enough to break it.
Sometimes we succeeded in separating the bubbles from the pipe and in blowing them for a while through the air, or over the table.
But large or small, all alike had an end. None of them lasted more than a few minutes.
The bubbles remind us of two things, —our lives and life’s pleasures.
Each of ns has a life on this earth, but that life must end. Some are short and some are long; but none can continue here forever. When the bubble of your earthly life bursts, where will you go?
God invites you to go up higher. Will you accept His invitation? Christ, the Saviour, is preparing a home above for all who love Him. He has given His life that we might live. Nineteen hundred years ago He died on a cruel cross that you and I might not have to die and suffer the punishment we deserved for our sins. Reader, can you reject such love? Seek Him while He may yet be found. Accept the wonderful gift He offers—the gift of eternal life. Then, when your life on earth is over, you will be blest in the Saviour’s presence forever and ever.
Speaking now of life’s pleasures, how long, we ask, do they last? Like the bubbles, some are gone very soon—some last a little longer. But all disappear in a short time.
Some of them are very beautiful, just as the bubbles are. But that does not make them stay. They are empty, with just a thin covering that will certainly break.
Why then, dear reader seek to find pleasure and satisfaction in that which is so empty and unreal—just like a soap bubble!
If we know Jesus as our Saviour, there are pleasures awaiting us that will not disappear. We can say with David, the psalmist,
“In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Ps. Ps. 16:11.
The only true joy we can find here is Christ. Rejoicing in Him we have joy that is unmarred by the troubles and disappointments that belong to earthly pleasures.
Do not cling to these bubbles of earthly pleasures, but seek that pleasure which Christ alone can give.
ML 09/20/1903