Weekly Thought – June 20,2023
Fred strongly believed in the impact of the “as you go” Christian faith. He often spoke of the verse which told us Jesus went about doing good. Making the Christian life natural and normal was a key principle.
Doing Good
Setting out to achieve great good is a hollow goal. The measurement is most often long term and rarely can we neatly organize our lives into Large Good and Small Good.
I want to give you two examples (among many) of people living out what was said in scripture that Jesus went about doing good. He didn’t make these acts the focus of His ministry. He came to bring the message of salvation and be our sacrifice for sin. The good was an outgrowth of His “going about.”
The story of Steve Largent was featured in a Fellowship of Christian Athletes magazine. His father deserted the family when he was six. His mother remarried a man who was an alcoholic. He often came home from school and had to separate his brother and step-father who were constantly fighting. He went out very little after school, but he heard about a teenage group which served cookies and punch. The draw of getting away from the turmoil at home and the offer of cookies and punch drew him in. That meeting was a Young Life meeting where Steve Largent found Christ as his savior. I wonder if the lady who baked the cookies and made the punch even thought of her work as doing “great good.” But what she may have seen as small changed a young man’s life and trajectory.
I emphasize the importance of recognizing our circumstances, just as Jesus did. He let the circumstances set His agenda. A year ago I got a letter from a lady named Beth who was reading You and Your Network. She stopped to write me. She told me her life story. When she was 12 she saw her father murdered. The shock put her into such depression she was institutionalized until she was 20. After attempting suicide, she found the Lord and became a minister. We continued to correspond. One letter said the depression and the blackness was back. “I can’t preach anymore.” I wrote her and in a letter she sent back she said, “I don’t have to be famous, do I? I don’t have to be well known to be a faithful Christian, do I?”
She wrote about a young girl she read about in the newspaper who was about the age of her own daughter who was jailed for prostitution and drugs. Beth went to see her. The girl was defiant, but Beth simply said, “I just want to tell you that God loves you and I would like to be your friend. She said the young girl ran into her arms, sobbing. After this Beth had three more opportunities like this.
Last week I got a letter from her. “Fred. if we don’t meet on this earth, in heaven a lady will slide up beside you and say “Hello, my name is Elizabeth, but my friends call me Beth.”
This week think carefully about: 1) How open are my eyes to the possibilities of “doing good” each day? 2) When was the last time I had an opportunity to speak a word or give aid to another? 3) What acts of service bring me the greatest joy?
Words of Wisdom: “The measurement ( of good) is most often long term and rarely can we neatly organize our lives into Large Good and Small Good.”
Wisdom from the Word: “So we must not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9 NET Bible)