Are you missing anything?

Mini Sermon by C. E. Strain

How we look at life is how life is. Some things we cannot control, other things we are in complete control.

One evening, years ago, I was setting home reading my Bible. I had been reading for quite a while when I noticed that my left leg was missing. I mean, I could see it, I could feel it with my hand. But for all purposes, it was missing. It wasn't asleep. It was as if it was gone and all I had was a "stump". When I moved my leg, it only felt as if I was just moving a stump.

I considered a couple of things. First, I was missing a limb, but I was still a Christian. If I had been missing an eye, or an arm, or a mind, or my speach or anything else, it wouldn't matter because I am a Christian. Being a Christian is what makes us whole. It was if the Lord wanted me to know this.

Just as real as the feeling was, the feeling of two good legs returned. I went back to reading and thanked the Lord for the little bit of understanding that He showed me.

The next day, as I was driving to the airport where I worked, I noticed a nursing home on the right. I had passed by it each and every day. But today it seemed to have more significance. So I turned into the parking lot and went inside. I was greeted at the door by a dozen or more people who were sad, lonely and depressed looking. It was a bit too much for me, so I went on down one of the hallways. As I got to the end of the hall, there was the sign "EXIT". I kinda thought, "Lord, what did you bring me here for. This is just a dead end."

I looked to the right into the room at the end of this hall, and here sat a old man in his bed. He was missing his left leg!

He looked at me and said, "Come on in Preacher, last night the Lord told me that you were coming."

I was kinda shocked by his remark, but I remembered the thoughts that I had experienced that previous night. He offered me a chair as I walked in.

He told me that he was 85 years old and that the Lord had a ministry for him right here in this nursing home. He showed me how he was able to "swing" himself over into his wheel chair and get on down the hallway. He told me that he was the last person to pray with some of these people before they died. He said that the Lord would wake him up and he would roll down to someone's room and share the Gospel to that person.

I saw the face of a man, not an old man, but a man of God. A man that the Lord put in the right place to do His work. We can say that we are "put away" into a nursing home, or we have to work with "difficult people on our jobs". We can say "I wish the Lord would change . . . . ".

Or we can look at life like this 85 year old fellow did. With one missing limb. But with a complete walk with God. Being God's last witness to those around him. Did his family visit him? I don't know, but I do know that he got out of his bed, and visited the sick and dying.

Our time in life here is very short. 85 years isn't very long.

Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Psa 119:33

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