receding context, 'I labour if that I may lay hold of that for which
also I have been laid hold of by Jesus Christ.' In the words that follow
the text he speaks of the prize as being the result and purpose of the
high calling of God 'in Christ Jesus.' So then he took God's purpose in
calling, and Christ's purpose in redeeming him, as being his great
object in life. God's aims and Paul's were identical.

What, then, is the aim of God in all that He has done for us? The
production in us of God-like and God-pleasing character. For this suns
rise and set; for this seasons and times come and go; for this sorrows
and joys are experienced; for this hopes and fears and loves are
kindled. For this all the discipline of life is set in motion. For this
we were created; for this we have been redeemed. For this Jesus Christ
lived and suffered and died. For this God's Spirit is poured out upon
the world. All else is scaffolding; this is the building which it
contemplates, and when the building is reared the scaffolding may be
cleared away. God means to make us like Himself, and so pleasing to
Himself, and has no other end in all the varieties of His gifts and
bestowments but only this, the production of character.

Such is the aim that we should set before us. The acceptance of that aim
as ours will give nobleness and blessedness to our lives as nothing else
will. How different all our estimates of the meaning and true nature of
events would be, if we kept clearly before us that their intention was
not merely to make us blessed and glad, or to make us sorrowful, but
that, through the blessedness, through the sorrow, through the gift,
through the withdrawal, through all the variety of dealings, the
intention was one and the same, to mould us to the likeness of our Lord
and Saviour! There would be fewer mysteries in our lives, we should
seldomer have to stand in astonishment, in vain regret, in miserable and
weakening looking back upon vanished gifts, and saying to ourselves,
'Why has this darkness stooped upon my path?' if we looked beyond the
darkness and the light to that for which both were sent. Some plants
require frost to bring out their savour, and men need sorrow to test and
to produce their highest qualities. There would be fewer knots in the
thread of our lives, and fewer mysteries in our experience, if we made
God's aim ours, and strove through all variations of condition to
realise it.

How different all our estimate of