What Good Can I Possibly Do?

He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. Matthew 4:23

I must confess, this blog isn’t my first attempt at writing. Several years ago, during one of my early cracks at recovery, I wrote a book. I’ll spare the details, but it was a Christian book and I hoped that perhaps I would enjoy some commercial success. In my most fantastic thinking, I thought that maybe God would use me greatly and that I would become rich and famous. That book has never left the hard drive of my computer.

I relapsed, created a mess of life, and abandoned the project. I went from imagining that God would use me for great things . . . to treatment. The reality of my destructive life choices superseded my fantasy of being a successful Christian author. In my disaster, I had to face reality. I’m no spiritual giant. I’m a mess. At that point, I believed that God couldn’t use me for anything. What good could I possibly do now?

Today’s passage didn’t help. In it, Christ healed the sick and cast out demons. I was a drug addict. I couldn’t do those things. I thought I was of no use to God. I was wrong though.

I couldn’t heal anyone, but early in my recovery, I felt God asking me to go to the jail to start a Bible study. So, I went. It was not the glamorous ministry I had once imagined, but it was what I could do with what I had. It wasn’t what I had previously hoped God use me for, but it was authentic, and it wasn’t done out of vain conceit. It was an honest effort to do what I could, with what I had, for those whom God put in my path.

This, I think, is the lesson of today’s passage. God doesn’t ask that we perform miracles. Christ had that power, but not many of us do. What God does ask, is that we do what we can, with what we have, to love those he puts in our lives. This may not be glamorous, but when we’re obedient, serving God and not ourselves, he grows miraculous life in and through us. We may not be able to perform miracles, but we can all do something for someone.