“Do What You Can, With What You Have, Where You Are”

It is common for people to imagine all the things they could do if only they had more resources, whether it be money, time, or talent. This is true of people in the church as well. We imagine things like, “If I had ten million dollars, I would give half of it to God”...or “If I didn’t have to work and had more time, I would do a lot more in the church” or maybe we think that if we only had more talent we could lead singing or teach a bible class or maybe even preach. There is nothing wrong with wishing we had more so that we could do more in the church. But perhaps the real question is not, “what would we do if we had more money or time or talent?” but rather “What are we doing with what we already have?” Theodore Roosevelt is credited with saying, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” This is a biblical principle as well. In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) the one talent man was called “wicked and lazy” (vs. 26) because he did nothing with what he had been given. He wasn’t expected to do as much as the five talent man or the two talent man. Each man was only expected to do what he had the ability to do (vs. 15). The one talent man didn’t have as much as the other two men in the parable, but he made no attempt to do anything at all with what he did have. He didn’t do what he could have, with the little he did have. Another thought to ponder... Perhaps we don’t have more money or time or talent because we are not properly using what we already have. The one talent man didn’t use the talent he had, so it was taken away from him and given to someone who was using his resources properly (vs.20). If we expect God to bless us with more money or time or talent, perhaps we should apply ourselves to properly using what we already have and do “what we can, with what we have, where we are”.