Welcome to the inspirational living podcast.

Today's reading was edited and adapted from A Life of Character by J.R. Miller, published in 1894.

The building of character is the most important business of life. It matters little what works

you may leave in the world. Your real success is measured by what you have formed along the years

in your own being. True character must be built after divine patterns. Every person's life is a plan of God.

There is a divine purpose regarding it which we should realize.

In the scriptures, we find the patterns for all the parts of the character,

not only for its great and prominent elements,

but also for its most minute features.

The commandments, the sermon on the mount, the parables, all show us the pattern after which

we are to fashion our character.

It is a great thing for us to have a lofty thought of life, and ever to seek to reach it.

Said Michelangelo, nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to create something perfect, for God is perfection, and whoever strives for it, strives for something that

is Godlike. The seeking itself makes us nobler, holier, purer, stronger. We grow ever toward

that for which we long.

Many searches are unrewarded.

People seek for gold and do not find it.

They try to attain happiness, but the vision ever recedes as they press toward it.

The quest for true nobleness is the one that is rewarded. Longing for spiritual good shall never be in vain. An unceasing longing, with earnest reaching after the good, lifts the life into

permanent realization of that which is persistently sought.

There are certain things essential in all building.

Every structure requires a good foundation.

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