When Theodore Parker was awaiting the call of the death angel in 1860, a friend tried to comfort him by reminding him of his devotion to God and the service he had rendered. “I don’t know,” he said. “I had great powers committed to me and I have but half used them.” This is a brief autobiography of most of us.

Many of us go to our graves with the music of our souls still unplayed, our real talents undeveloped, and our ability remaining an unknown quantity in our lives. This is realistically pictured for us in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” in which he expresses the reflections of man in the presence of death. Standing on the sacred spot where “the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,” he says,

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.

Thus, does he remind us that…

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Hugh Walpole said that “men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit and seldom draw on them.”

In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, the unemployed were asked, “Why stand you here, idle all they day?” They replied, “Because no man hired us.”

Picture these words falling from the lips of a man filled with despair and futility because he is unemployed and his family is hungry, cold and naked. With the talents and ability to do a job by which he could provide for them he must answer, “Because no man will hire me.”

The wastefulness of resources as well as the suffering of those who are not provided for presents a heart breaking picture. G. B. Emerson once said that “life is hardly respectable if it has not task, no duties, or affections that constitute a necessity for existing.” Every man’s task is his life preserver. “So essential is employment to happiness that unemployment is the mother of misery.”

But it is sadder by far to see talents, abilities, influences, and powers given to us by God and then, through neglect and waste, be forced to say at the end of life, “I had great powers committed to me but I have only half used them.” It is through the realization of our worth and value and the use of our talents and abilities that we find our happiness. To fail to discover them or to make the most of them is to rob God, our homes, our world, and last but not least, ourselves.

A widow left to struggle on a small farm strove with perseverance to earn enough to support and educate her children. After years of grinding toil, she permitted oil men to drill a well and soon she was wealthy with riches that had been hers and her husband’s for years, but they had not known it. Like the oil in her soil are the undreamed-of blessings, abilities, and values of our lives. We lose golden hours in the neglect of or refusal to use our opportunities and powers to become what God planned for us in his blueprint of our lives.

One of our greatest needs is to discover our value and to put a new price tag on ourselves. In the familiar story of the Bible in which David kills Goliath, the armies of Israel and the armies of Philistia are drawn in battle array. The Philistines have already been defeated by Israel and they fear the battle. Israel is dismayed and ill-prepared to repel the aggression, and although she goes out to meet them, she does nothing more. For forty days nothing happens, except a gigantic soldier, heavily armed, proud and conceited, challenges the army of Saul with a course of action which would save the armies from having to engage in conflict. Goliath offers to fight one of their men and to the victor would go the victory of the whole army.

David volunteers and Saul says it is madness to put a shepherd boy, with only the experiences of tending sheep, against a giant who has spent his life in warfare. Nevertheless, he agrees and David fights the battle. Goliath boasts that he will soon give the flesh of David to the buzzards and asks, “Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?” But armed only with a sling and five stones he meets the mighty giant, fighting in the name of the Lord, and Goliath falls, the Philistines flee, and the battle is the Lord’s.

It is only a shepherd boy who turns the tide of the battle. A boy so seemingly unprepared, out of place, and unimpressive, that Goliath felt insulted, his brothers felt resentful, the king saw only weakness, and the enemy saw no opposition. But nobody knew the worth of David—his value to God, to his people, and to the cause of freedom—but David.

When he put a high price tag on his God-given abilities and powers, it reduced the price on the tag of the enemy’s power. David could put a high value on himself because he was God’s man. When Saul said, “You are not able,” David replied, “I have killed lions and bears and the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion will deliver me from this Philistine.” To Goliath he said, “I come in the name of the Lord of hosts, the guard of the armies of Israel.” Here is what one man is worth to God, to his people, to his brothers, and to the cause of righteousness, when God touches his life.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if young people could realize their worth to God, home, communities, and themselves, while they are young, so that they would be enriching their lives for the days when they grow older? So often a young person feels that he must follow the crowd, right or wrong, in order to be popular or to be a part of the crowd. He never realizes his powers of influence in changing the movements, morals, methods, and modes of life of the young people of his community. Just one young person, dedicated to Christ, can change the policies of a club, the principles of a group, and the activities of a community, to make them conform more and more to the ideals of Christ.

Who is the most valuable, most popular, most respected of the young men returning from the battle front when David killed Goliath? It was David who stood up and challenged evil as no one else dared to do, and who knew his value in the hands of God. He returned home to the dancing and singing of “Saul has slain his thousands but David has slain his tens of thousands.” More honorable than the king himself was the young man who put a high price tag on himself for God.

More than a century ago a historian wrote, “A nurse is a coarse old woman, always ignorant, usually dirty, often brutal and notorious for her immoral conduct.” But into that profession came a young girl with high ideals, the dream of a better day for the sick, and a nobler profession for those who followed it. In the Crimean War at Scurati, through her ministry and influence, in sixteen months the mortality rate of disease was reduced from 42% to 2%. Florence Nightingale became the “Lady with the Lamp” as she walked down the halls where

Slow as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turned to kiss
Her shadow as it falls upon the darkening walls.

It was said that “this Angel of Crimea” played a greater part in the war than the “Charge of the Light Brigade.”

If you were to wish for the youth of today,
And then have that wish come true,
Would you not wish in some magic way
They’d give themselves credit that’s due?

They know the price of the latest car,
They know the mileage it will do;
They know what the trends in fashion are,
They know which inventions are new;
But don’t know their own value.

If you were to pray for the youth of today,
And then have that prayer come true;
Would you not pray in some real way,
They’d give the Lord credit he’s due?
And learn from Him their own value.

Whether it’s a young person or an adult, one life for God, one vote for Christ, one voice for truth, one soft answer that turns away wrath, one helping hand—these are more than numerical figures. They are the weights and influences of our eternal value, the powers of God which may change the course of life for many. No wonder the writer of the proverb says of a good mother, “Her price is far above rubies,” and elsewhere says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.”

When we discover our value we develop our talents, take advantage of our opportunities, enlarge and use our abilities. The difference between David and the Israelites standing in awe, trembling at the challenge of the giant, was that David picked up the stones and went out to battle. He wasn’t the only man who could have killed the giant but he had been preparing himself as he trusted the Lord, whether it was deliverance from the paw of the lion or the giant of the Philistines. Therefore he was ready for battle.

The difference between the widow who gave her two mites to the Lord and the other widows of that time was that this one brought hers while others were staying back, perhaps saying, “I can’t afford to do it now.”

The difference between young people who leave their mark for Christ upon the world and those who do not, is not a difference in powers and abilities, but in a willingness to stand up for Christ.

The difference between people who reach out to serve and those who will not, who say they can’t, is not that some have talents and others do not—it is simply a matter of some being willing to use what talents they have and in the process enlarge their powers and develop their talents.

You see, we don’t become able by waiting until we are able. We succeed by beginning and developing the powers we have. Robert Benchly said, “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing. By that time I had become too famous to quit.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes says, “Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” This is the road down which the successful have traveled. The trouble with the one-talent man was that he wrapped it, buried it, and waited until he had some more. The time never came. “Take from him and give to him that has ten” is more than the sentence of a judge. It is the law of life. Use the talent and it grows, neglect it and it withers. Edmund Burke displayed great eloquence in the Parliament of England. His brother, Richard, wondered why he had monopolized the talents of the family. But then remembering he said, “I recall that when we were at play, he was always at work.”

What we are capable of doing when the need arises or the crisis comes depends on what we already are, and what we are is the result of previous discipline. Don’t do the work of Christ today, and you won’t be any better prepared to do it tomorrow.

“Turned down opportunities.” These three words sum up our weaknesses. It is the neglect of God’s invitations and requirements which accounts for our dying powers and our half-used abilities. Let’s compare opportunities we have for spiritual growth and Christian service in the church, with the story of the invitation to the feast which Jesus gives us. You will recall that the invitation to the feast went out and the excuses offered were: “I have bought a piece of land, I have bought a yoke of oxen, and I have married a wife.” For these reasons the invitation was refused. All were important matters, but when duty to God is neglected and the door to God’s presence is closed, good things become cisterns without water.

Those who take advantage of opportunities to learn will be more inclined to accept responsibility when it is offered. For those who are trained now, when someone asks them to serve six months from now, they are better able to say, “Well, I’ll try.” And then having tried they will be better equipped, and as the years go by they will be looked upon as spiritual leaders of their day.

Others will say, “Oh, I can’t do it. I’m not prepared.” This will still be true ten or twenty years from now if they don’t start to get trained. It will not be a difference of abilities but a difference of consecration. I have often heard Christians say of somebody else, “I wish I had that kind of faith.” The reason they do not have that kind of faith is not because God didn’t want to give it to them but because they did not allow God first place in their lives.

My faith today is the fruit of my faith yesterday. David said, “I will go out and fight the giant because the Lord has already delivered me from the paw of the lion and the bear.”

The need of Christians today is an awareness of their value to God, their homes, and the world. When we stand up for God, believing that through us and in us, he can do great things, we are not as someone said, “briars trying to be roses,” but “roses trying to bloom.”

The secret of our greatness coming to light and the potential of life in Christ is put in poetic words by Samuel Rogers:

The soul of music slumbers in the shell
Til waked and kindled by the Masters’ spell;
And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour
A thousand melodies unheard before.”

We do not know our value, we cannot tell our worth, and we have never dreamed of our powers until we have allowed the Master to touch our spirits and have surrendered ourselves to Him in faith and trust. It is our choice to do this now, today. Surrender yourself. Let the Master touch you!
 

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