Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t

The Rev. Randy Beeman, senior pastor, First Christian Church, 1000 Ky.:

A friend of mine who is a person of faith said “I don’t dance, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls that do.”

Many times our perspective of faith is framed in the “what I won’t do or shouldn’t do.” I would suggest that faith is much more about what we “do.”

Paul in the scriptures reminded us that “we can do all things through Christ.”

Usually we forget this “do” principle for the New Year and the resolutions we make. We think more about how we can not eat, how we can not spend more, what we should remove from our lives, etc.

I would suggest this year become a “can do” year. Consider what things you might do to improve your mind, heart and spirit. I think positive New Year’s resolutions can be healthy to every part of our being.

We have the opportunity with a new year to contemplate those actions of compassion and mercy we can show, the words of love that can be expressed to someone who may not deserve them or the things we could read or view that would encourage our heart and mind.

So resolutions of “I shouldn’t do this and that” could possibly be replaced this year with the “can do” resolutions that bring joy and hope to our lives in the coming year.

— Send e-mail to Randy Beeman at rbeeman@sunflower.com.

Find ways to live for others, not yourself

The Rev. Peter Luckey, senior pastor, Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.:

Live more for others. What other resolution has more potential to bring peace to the world and to ourselves?

While in India this fall, I met a man by the name of Manfred Rothe. He is an older gentleman, a paraplegic, who hails from Germany but was in India because he has made the support of orphaned boys his lifetime calling.

Our paths crossed at a boarding hostel in Kerala, India, a place for boys who come from homes so poor that their families are unable to provide for them.

Mr. Rothe had come to the hostel to convey his love for these children. An assembly was held where Alfred called up to the front each one of his adoptees to offer an embrace and say “You are precious.”

Manfred is the kind of person one could easily imagine turning away from the world’s problems. The world has not been kind to him.

Not only has he been dealt nonfunctioning legs, but his heart was crushed as well. On the very day prior to his wedding, his one and only love of his life was killed instantly by a truck. For many years thereafter, Mr. Rothe wanted nothing to do with God. Then one day he met an orphaned boy in Bogota, Colombia, who was shining his shoes.

From that day on, he gave his life over to supporting orphaned children around the world.

Whenever in this coming year I become focused on myself, I will think about Mr. Manfred Rothe embracing those orphaned boys in India.

— Send e-mail to Peter Luckey at peterluckey@sunflower.com.