Daily Jewel

by Pastor Carnell, McAlester, OK

“Your Voice Matters!”
“Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts…” – Proverbs8:3 (MSG)

Have you ever thought—“I wish I had said that”? Not many of us are equal in word power to the great public speakers of history. Limiting the list to Americans still requires a large number of speakers and the speeches they made. Here are a few names that should be on everyone’s list: Susan B. Anthony; Pearl S. Buck; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; Patrick Henry; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Helen Keller; Douglas MacArthur; Henry Ward Beecher; Shirley Chisholm; Benjamin Franklin, George Washington.
Does the name Edward Everett ring a bell? He was considered to be the nation’s greatest orator of his time. U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, U.S. Envoy to England, Governor of Massachusetts, U.S. Secretary of State, President of Harvard University—these were among the high-ranking positions he held. In 1863 he was invited to deliver the major address dedicating the new Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19 of that year. Unfortunately for him, the committee that invited him to speak, also invited President Lincoln to make “a few appropriate remarks” to the gathering of soldiers and other notables present that day. Everyone remembers Lincoln’s address. Few remember Everett’s.
Even Everett knew he had been upstaged by Lincoln. On the day following the Gettysburg dedication, he wrote a note to Lincoln, expressing his appreciation for the President’s brief, but very moving speech. He said, “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” I believe they call that, “eating humble pie.” But he was right. However, Everett was no slouch when it came to brevity. One quote attributed to him is this one: “Lift where you stand.”
I like it almost as much as the modern parallel: “Grow where you’re planted.” What is the essence of those two quotations? Simply stated, it is sometimes easier to move on to other opportunities in your career while under pressure, than to stand where you are and keep lifting. I heard a radio preacher make this observation recently: “Obstinate church members seem able to re-incarnate themselves in every church you pastor.” In other words, your critics (or someone very much like them) will follow you wherever you labor. In an essay entitled, “Confidence,” the late Konrad Adenauer, former German chancellor, wrote:
Most of us, in moments of fatigue or discouragement, have taken a look at our daily task and wondered, “What does it really matter?” Precisely at those moments we should tell ourselves what my lifetime has taught me is the one true answer: “I shall keep doing the job, for I matter a great deal.”

Focus on Adenauer’s last five words: “I matter a great deal.” A young boy, walking barefoot on the beach near his home, noticed an old gent walking along the same beach, a good distance ahead of him. The boy noticed that the man seemed to be walking, haltingly, and stopping every few paces, picking up something from the sand, and tossing it into the tide as it was going out. As he finally overtook the man, the boy saw that the guy was picking up star fish that had washed ashore. It was the star fish that the old man was throwing back into the sea. When he finally caught up to the man, the boy asked, “Why are you tossing those creatures back into the ocean. It’s a meaningless thing; there are so many. It really doesn’t matter.” To that the old gent paused before throwing another star fish into the water and said, “It matters to that one.”
Just how important is the work you do for God? And for the Church? And for others? How important are you? What you do matters to someone. It should matter to you. Grow where you’re planted. Lift where you stand. It really matters.
Pastor J. T. Carnell.