Minute Meditations

Benjamin Franklin once said, ”The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he doesn’t make the biggest mistake of all – doing nothing.”

One sees this demonstrated every day in the business world. We know a man who would fit the ”milk toast” description perfectly. He is so scared that he might do something wrong that he rarely does anything right either. Although he has been with the same company for years, he still has one of the lowest paid positions in the company simply because he is so afraid of making a mistake, he can’t be trusted with any responsibility at all. Another person we know is a young woman in her early thirties and she has risen to a position of top management in her company simply because she is not afraid to make a decision and do things. Only recently she said, ”I know that I am not always right, but I am trying, and I am willing to stick my neck out.”

This reminds us of the story of the turtle. It is said that a turtle never gets anywhere until he sticks his neck out. As long as he keeps his head tucked under his shell he just stays in one place. There are people like that, hiding under their shell and never doing anything.

As brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, God is counting on us to do His works on this planet. So far as we know, He has no one else to do it but us. He called us. He picked us. How could we have the audacity to in essence say to Almighty God. ”You picked me all right, but you made a mistake when you chose me. I have no talents, no abilities, there is nothing I can do for you, Lord.” We know that an employer would not think well of that negative attitude, yet we hear brethren and sisters say ”no” when asked to do service in the Lord’s vineyard. There are even some who carry this so far that they refuse to be baptized simply because they say that they could never live it.

Of course we can! But we can’t if we won’t try. God realizes that we will make mistakes, that is why He has provided a saviour in His son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and in prayer Jesus taught us to ask for forgiveness for our sins. It is better to be trying and doing things and have some sins of commission to be forgiven than to sit idly by and have only one sin and that one sin a big do-nothing, the sin of omission. The one condemned by his master in the Lord’s parable was the one who took his talent and hid it in the earth and sat back and did nothing.

We frequently say that all things are possible with GOD and this is true and it is a quote from the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is in a sense something that God cannot do. He cannot remember our good works that we never did. He cannot even recall our baptism that never took place. What we do each day is being recorded and we will have to answer to our Lord for what we did. Some seem to think they have a clean tape because it is a blank tape.

Just what do we do each day, simply because we belong to Jesus? Many of the things we do every day we would do even if we did not belong to him. At the end of the day we are well advised to stop a minute and review the activities of the day. What did we do today for Jesus? If we can’t think of anything, that surely is telling us something, isn’t it? Will tomorrow be different? It can be but it won’t be unless we decide to make it different by consciously planning to do things simply because of our love for our Lord.

The last page of the Old Testament tells us that ”the LORD hearkened and heard” when He found those who were thinking and doing for Him. He had just condemned those who were robbing God by doing nothing. A book of remembrance is being written for those ”that feared the LORD and that thought upon His name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.”