Fill the Spaces

Select a large box, and place in it as many cannonballs as it will hold, and it is, after a fashion, full; but it will hold more if smaller matters be found. Bring a quantity of marbles; very many of these may be packed in the spaces between the larger globes; the box is now full, but only in a sense; it will contain more yet. There are spaces in abundance, into which you may shake a considerable quantity of small shot, and now the chest is filled beyond all question; but yet there is room. You cannot put in another shot or marble, much less another ball; but you will find that several pounds of sand will slide down between the larger materials, and, even then between the granules of sand, if you empty yonder jug, there will be space for all the water, and for the same quantity several times repeated. Where there is no space for the great, there may be room for the little; where the little cannot enter, the less can make its way: and where the less is shut out, the least of all may find ample room. So where time is, as we say fully occupied, there must be stray moments, occasional intervals, and bits of time which might hold a vast amount of little usefulness in the course of months and years.

- C. H. Spurgeon