one me at a time

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do." -Edward Everett Hale

 

"i am going to make a lasting difference with my life!"

"what idiocy," frail keith scoffs. "who am i to change this world, a planet upon which there is nothing new under the sun?" 

faithful keith timidly responds, "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

i know that frail keith will likely have the upper hand again soon. this is my tragic flaw, my achilles' heel: Frailty imprisons Faith and tosses him in a prison of apathy, scorning and taunting, "who do you think you are, to dream of living a life beyond you?" then, licking my wounds in my hypnosis of self-pity and hopeless abandonment, i hear a still, small voice whispering, "beloved Littlefaith, why do you doubt?"

to go beyond myself, to bless a life other than my own, is this such a vain pursuit? 

we were created to live for others. we were reborn to look past ourselves; to reach out to those trapped in the realm of the Deceiver, where people die alone on the street, abandoned and despised in a world in which they did not belong. i know a Kingdom in which they do belong, a Kingdom that transforms ragged misfits into children of the King.

i, like little mephibosheth, am a crippled outcast who has been welcomed to the King's table, and i know my King has come to heal the sick, to feed those who are hungry for the Bread of Life and thirsty for Living Water. He has gone into the highways and byways, calling to all so that the table of His wedding feast will be filled. i even have brothers and sisters who have sunk beneath the waves, who were once walking on the water but the wind has frightened them and they have begun to sink.

the only hand most of them need to lift them, to put their eyes back on the Lord, is the hand of someone to pour on them love and encouragement, to let them know that the Master of the wind and the waves does care, and He has saved them.

all men are to know that we are Christ's disciples because we love one another, but so often we are so caught in our own 'individual spiritual life' that we pass by our neighbor - more than that, our own family, who have been beaten and robbed by the Robber and left for dead. when will we realize that he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen? this love is the perfect bond of unity, and it is this that demonstrates the love of Christ to a world of counterfeit lovers.

is it too much for little ole keith to do something with this one chance at life he's got? yes, i suppose it is. alone. but i'm not. and maybe, just maybe, my heroic rants about changing the world, about going beyond anything i ever thought i could be and impacting lives for eternity, will help fertilize the ground for this tiny seed of faith that i know has been planted inside me. one day, this mountain of apathy and self-obsessed frailty will be tossed into the sea, and i will live to be all my Savior intended me to be.