By Dean Kelly

Minister, Highland Home Church of Christ

Sometimes a little event will stick in your mind, and a simple action will teach a lesson you never forget.

I was a teenager. Our youth group decided to care for the yard at the church building one Saturday. The boys brought lawnmowers and trimmers. The girls set about to do other clean up chores. 

We came to the end of our work. Everything looked so nice. Hard work had been done by all. However, out in the middle of the yard was a tall piece of uncut grass. The boys began to point fingers at each other and to accuse their friends of being the one who missed it. They tried to figure out who mowed that section to be able to blame them. It actually was beginning to get kind of heated between the boys.

One girl who was listening finally spoke up. Her simple statement has stuck with me through all these years. 

She said, “It looks to me like you all missed it!” 

The boys grew quiet, and one took a pair of clippers and cut it down.

Her statement has always resonated with me when I, or someone else, has wanted to complain about what the church has not done. I always think when something goes undone – haven’t we all missed it?

We need more people who respond like Abraham (Genesis 15:16; 22:11), Jacob (Genesis 46:22), Moses (Exodus 3:4), and Samuel (1 Samuel 3:1-8), who will answer, “Here I am” when the call to service sounds forth.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might…” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

“Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

Let’s not blame others for what is not done; instead let’s do it!

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