Life’s Promises – Sunday, January 19, 1986
Often, the windows of the world are covered with rain, but the promise of the Creator is that there will be sunny days. And, when they come, we must be ready and willing to take advantage of them.
Some time ago, a newspaper carried the account of a 92-year-old woman who had spent most of her life in institutions for the mentally handicapped. As a result of the inaccurate diagnosis and the confinement that followed, she had developed, over the years, the symptoms and characteristics of a mentally handicapped person. She did what seemed to be expected of her, and the promise of a more productive life went largely unfulfilled.
To a greater or lesser degree, we share a similar tragedy in our own lives when we do not take advantage of the promises life holds out to us. It is a sad circumstance when a human being is denied the opportunity to grow and develop to his or her fullest potential, but it is an even greater tragedy when a person has the opportunities to grow and refuses to take advantage of them.
It happens much too often in today’s world, especially in places where opportunity abounds. We see school dropouts, lives wasted in drugs and delinquency, talent wasted on degrading activities, and families destroyed for a few moments of cheap temptation. We see a society often satisfied with the mediocre and mundane. We see the majority content with the ugly while ignoring the beautiful.
Generations before us, who longed for learning, would shake their heads in disbelief and disgust that our society could be off so much and willing to settle for so little.
Never have any people in today’s modern societies had spread before them such a banquet of intellectual, cultural, physical, and social richness as we have today. In this country, libraries dot the landscape. The greatest dramatic, literary, and musical composers and performers are available at the push of a button. Educational and cultural opportunities are available in even the most rural home.
Perhaps we have not yet caught the vision of what we can be. The psalmist might have given us a hint when he sang to the Lord, “What is man that thou art mindful of him… For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.”1
Because we have been given much, much is expected. But, beyond the expectation is also the opportunity. While life does not hold the same promise for everyone, we all have the same amount of time to take advantage of what opportunity does come our way. The success in life is not measured by how much we are given, but by how much we take advantage of what we have.
1 Old Testament, Psalms 84:5
January 19, 1986
Broadcast Number 2,944