This Gift

“I’d rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a bath-chair and then die in the end just the same” (C.S. Lewis in The Last Battle).

A number of years ago I wrote an essay about my collection of canes, staffs, shillelaghs and walking sticks and mused that I might someday graduate to a walker. Well, the day has come. A combination of back issues and peripheral neuropathy has left me pushing a three-wheel walker. I can't hike; I can't fish; I can't do many of the things that used to bring me great joy. My limitations appear severe indeed.

I'm trying to learn, however, that my limitations, whatever they may be, are a gift from God, and it is with this gift, that I am to serve him. This gift and not another. This is true of all of us whether our limits are emotional, physical or intellectual. We can glorify God with whatever limitations we have, be they ever so debilitating. Paul was so bold as to say that he "gloried in his infirmities," for it was in weakness that God's power was revealed in him.

Seeing our so-called liabilities this way enables us to go about our business with alacrity and courage. We won't complain, feel sorry for ourselves or opt out, but make ourselves available to God for his intended purposes.

I have no idea what he has in mind for us, but we shouldn't worry about that because he knows. He has prepared good works for us from eternity and will enable us by his grace to "walk in them."

Perhaps our task today is just to accept things as they are and to be content. This is, in part, what some have called, "the sacrament of the present moment"—offering up a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise, knowing that in the love, wisdom and providence of God this moment is okay as it is, in fact, as good as it can possibly be.

David Roper