Page Allen is a courageous and vivacious young lady with a quick smile and an overflowing optimism whose life was threatened by a terrible attack of Lupus. She was saved by a caring research doctor who went the second mile. From what we saw on T.V. Page appears to have abundant energy and a captivating personality. The T.V. reporter asked her, “Is there anything you can’t do?” Page thought a moment before responding, “Mmmmm. I can do some good stuff!!” To me this was a poignant reply. If I may be forgiven putting words in her mouth, I think there was an unspoken thought: “I am limited by this disease. There are some things I cannot do. But why worry about that when there are so many things I can do and can do well?”
My friend, Randy Green of Haleyville, Alabama, has been confined to either bed or a wheel chair for many years, but Randy is an evangelist through the use of World Bible School. Randy’s life is evangelism. Through his work, more people are being converted and more churches are being established in Liberia, West Africa, than by most well-known preachers anywhere. Randy is hampered by immobility. But Randy does some good stuff for the Lord.
All of which reminds me that most of us are hampered in our work for the Lord more by a bad attitude than by limiting circumstances. None of us is able to do everything but if we really think about it we would have to admit, “Mmmmm. I can do some good stuff.” Our problem is that we may not be able to do what we’d like to do. So, we shut down and refuse to do what we can do.
This seems to be one of the lessons in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30. There was much good stuff the one talent man could have done, but since he could not do what the five-talent man or the two-talent man could do, he did nothing.
The poor widow in Mark 12:41-44 is a wonderful example of how God views our work. She could not give enough to build a synagogue. She could not give enough to even make much of a difference by our standards. By some estimates the two mites she gave equal 1/6 of a cent! But she gave all she had. And with God that was good stuff!!
In the words of an old, old song we need to “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t mess with Mr. In Between. That’s not a quote from scripture, but it’s a scriptural idea!
