The World Has Need of Us!

God does not only provide opportunities to do good, he provides the strength. Sometimes we hesitate to step up to help someone in need, or give a cup of cold water to a stranger, because we are afraid of what will happen to us, or fear that we lack the strength and wisdom to stretch forth our hands.

If you are not finding the opportunity to stretch forth your hand to someone in need, it is because you are not praying. The world has need of us, all of us. So it is almost impossible not to see it. Jesus refers to it as the “harvest,” where the workers are few. There are more Christians and Christian Scientists today than in Jesus’ time, yet there are fewer workers today than there were two thousand years ago. Followers of Christ are the ones who act like him, not so much the ones who only talk like Christ. “Feed my sheep” was the demand of the Master to Peter. Today, if we are following the Master, there is no lesser demand.

Sometimes we don’t know how good the opportunity is until it was missed and gone. Never miss the opportunity to do good. It may be the last opportunity that person would have to be a better person. Never say, if I don’t do it, someone else will. You may be the last person to walk that way at that hour of need. Every help must proceed, first from our heart and thinking, before it can bear any fruit. All good work must begin within us, correcting our thinking of the environment, person(s), or thing in front of us that needs help; knowing that there is no place, space, person(s), or thing that is outside of God’s love and care; that God governs and provides for all His creation and no one can be missing from His everlasting care and love. When this principle is already in place, established in our thinking, then our outstretched hand can finish the work. Don’t be concerned about what you should say or do, for God will speak through you. “Behold, I send an Angel before thee,” He promised, and abundant strength He will also give you. Unlike the priest and the Levite, the Good Samaritan was able to establish God’s relationship with man in his thinking, and he was able to carry the wounded, all by himself, to a safer place, clean him up, care for him, and basically heal him before the treatment even began. His understanding of God and His loving relationship with His creation, which was lacking in the priest and the Levite, made the work effortless, and graceful, and eventually brought about the healing.

The last blizzard in the East Coast this winter provided me the opportunity to experience God’s abundant strength in action. After spending all day shoveling two-and-a-half feet of snow around my house, I decided to walk down the street to a grocery store. Right there was a car and the driver suffering. Humanly speaking, how could I make a difference? But I walked over and gave him a couple of instructions, then with me giving a small push from behind, he and his car were on their way home. I used the same principle for two more cars before I made it to the grocery store, that is less than two blocks from my house. God not only provides opportunity to do good, He gives the strength and the wisdom to accomplish it. If so, what is there to be afraid of? Open your heart and arms, be receptive of His message, and stretch forth your hands. The world has need of us!