We all want to do something worthwhile with our lives, to make a difference, to do something worth remembering. From where we stand, sometimes it's hard to measure if we're doing anything, what it might mean, because we're forced to play the short game with most people, since they come into our lives only for a season. Even if we're not destined to be average, sometimes we forget how few people truly get to rise to those lofty areas. Only a few hundred people play in each professional sport. Only a few dozen artists make the top 40 chart. Fewer than fifty men have been president. It doesn't diminish our contribution; it changes it. We need to be faithful to our calling.
Whatever our circumstances, Dieter Uchtdorf reminds us to lift where YOU stand. We are placed in different circumstances with different people and equipped with different talents and skills. No two people recreate the circumstances of another. Try as we like, like as we might, to think we know what we would or could do, we could never be sure of what we would do in another place. All we can really decide is what to do where we are, how to play our cards, and how to act according to our personal propensities. God knows that we differ, that we won't be perfect, and what we might do, and so He places us together with certain circumstances and certain people where what we are will be the best option. He knows that we don't always have all the cards, that other people may fold, and that other people's cards may be better. That's not the point. The point is to play the best we can, to do what we can do, to do things the best way we can think. I think that if He wanted it done better, He would do it Himself.
Having been chosen to participate in the calling and circumstances where you find yourself, the onus always rests on you to do YOUR best. When God doesn't call the "best", He calls the most available (Neal A Maxwell, Deposition of a Disciple). Your willingness to go and do will trump other people who decide to sit and stew. We may not think that we have much to offer, that our feeble efforts amount to us. With the great tide of evil, considering the great preponderance of selfishness and villainy, it makes sense that so many of us despair at our meager abilities. Remember that out of small and simple things proceedeth that which is great. David slew Goliath with a handful of small stones. Gideon defeated the Mideonites with only 300 soldiers. Samuel was only a small boy when God spoke to him and told him that he'd replace Eli in the tabernacle as chief priest. Far too often, we compare the strengths of others to our weaknesses, their advantages to our disadvantages. It's not fair to them or to us to refuse to recognize the influential and significant albeit small advantages our availability affords the Almighty. You may not be the best, but if you are competent, active, and care about them, then they may rise to the occasion and benefit more from your contribution than you realize. It may not come when you think.
Be faithful in YOUR calling. Our callings vary in our lives. Our circumstances vary in our lives. Our ability to act varies in our lives. On a stone archway in Scotland stands the following admonition: "What'e'er thou art, act well thy part." If you are in charge, be a leader. If you are on a team, carry your load. If you are a teacher, come prepared. If you are a student, facilitate learning. If you are rich, enrich others. If you are humble, celebrate God's goodness in your life. Wherever you are, do the best you can to approximate what Christ would have you do. Not everyone will be exceptional; not everyone wants to be. Everyone has the opportunity to be the best they can be whatever their circumstances. Viktor Frankl wrote about the last of human freedoms- the ability to choose your response no matter where you find yourself. They cannot take away your ability to choose. They can influence it with either benefits or privations, but you must surrender it in the end. Ample opportunity exists no matter your place to prove which master you truly serve. That's the purpose of this life- to prove each of us herewith if we are willing to do whatsoever the Lord asks of us.
If you would like to do better and be better, know that you are not alone. That is commendable. F. Anzio Busche however taught that the most important thing to which we can aspire is to be entirely under the influence of the Holy Ghost who will tell us what is truly good and right to do. Everything has a place. Every effort God asks matters. We don't see it, we don't get to benefit from it, but if nothing else it proves our faith, our disposition to act in concert with what God asks. Each act of obedience evinces how truly we serve that Master. You are responsible for what you do with your life. Whatever your circumstances, you can make a positive difference. Sometimes the following poem helps keep things in perspective:
“Father, where shall I work today?” And my love flowed warm and free. Then He pointed me out a tiny spot, And said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh, no, not that. Why, no one would ever see, No matter how well my work was done. Not that little place for me!”
And the word He spoke, it was not stern, HE answered me tenderly, “Ah, little one, search that heart of thine; Art thou working for them or me'
Nazareth was a little place, And so was Galilee.”
The Disciplines of Life by V. Raymond Edman
Being faithful to our calling isn't about the outcome. We cannot actually dictate the decisions made by other people. We cannot decide the outcomes of the world or guarantee the things we hope or promise, especially since other people are involved. That does not diminish the value of our efforts. The victory isn't in radically changing the world. Christ already did that. The victory is in acting, in doing well our part, wherever we are, to lift others and give our best honest effort every time with every person. Do not disparage the scope of your efforts. Christ went to a small nation, taught mostly impoverished people, kept relatively few followers, and yet 2000 years later, His life, mission and teachings irrevocably transformed the world.
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