What Can I Do?

"What must I do to be saved?" asked the Phillippian jailer. "Believe in the Lord Jesus" was the apostle Paul's answer. This single question and answer neatly summarize the teachings of the New Testament.

"What can I do?' ask our ministers and our doctors. "What can I do?" ask men caught in financial straits. Parents ask the question of teachers regarding their children's behavior or academic problems. A survey might show that this one of the most common questions around. It became such a common rainy-day question in our home, I made a list of activities for our son to engage in so that he began looking forward to a storm! I made a list of stories, collected craft ideas, added suggestions for poems and Scripture passages to memorize and ended with "Look for a rainbow." The result was a happy day.

Jesus tells us that he came to earth that we might have life and have it more abundantly. How do we achieve an abundant Christian life? First, we believe with a faith so strong that the storms of life can threaten, but they cannot destroy. The abundant life begins for us here on earth and leads in natural transition into eternity. A wonderful thing, faith; a positive thing.

The positive attitude of Christian living communicates to those around us. "I am convinced," said my retiring principal after having spent over forty years in education (and an equal number of years teaching church school class), "that most folks are just about as happy as they set out to be!" He had the happiest faculty I have ever worked with.

June Masters Bacher