No ifs, and, or buts…
David Seabury tells the story of his grandmother, who fell down a whole flight of stairs when she was
eighty years old. When the doctor examined her, he said she would never walk again. She pointed to the door
and said, “Go!” Another doctor was called, and he said if she ever did walk again, it would take years of painful
effort. Again, she pointed to the door and said, “Go!” A third doctor said she might walk again, but it would
take six months of careful convalescence. She said: “I was going to New Hampshire to be with my grandson
next week. I am going.” David Seabury writes: “I was that grandson. I met her at the station. She was on
crutches, but not for long. Before the summer ended, she discarded what she called ‘those horrid things.’ ”
The real handicapping factor is not the physical, financial, or environmental difficulty. The limiting
attitude succumbs to these things and accepts the worldly appraisal of possibilities. We need to speak to any
fear thought that rears its ugly head and say, “Go!”
Perhaps you have heard someone say: “I know that God is my help in every need, but with this
handicap, I don’t see how.” That person should know that his handicap is not really his physical or financial
challenge; his attitude is so completely summed up in that little word. “God is my help, but…” “I am a child of
God, but…” This is the first step in overcoming: Work to erase that word but. “God is my help―no
qualifications, no obstacles, no handicaps.” No ifs, and, or buts about it!
There is that within you that can turn any handicap into a source of power that can reverse any seeming adversity.
Fill your mind with stories of those who have done just this, and remember: “What God has done, God can do.”
Consider the puny lad named Dale Carnegie, who dreamed of being a football hero, but had neither the
build nor the coordination. He turned to public speaking and eventually founded the famous school of public
speaking that has helped thousands of insecure people to “Win Friends and Influence People.”
Or think of Alexander de Seversky, who lost his leg in an airplane gunfight in World War I, and who
now says, “I owe my entire career to the loss of my leg.” His has been one of the greatest contributions to the
aviation industry made by any living man.
During and after World War II, a great job was done in the rehabilitation of amputees by helping them to
make a mental compensation: to know that they could not only lead a “normal” life but could go forward to
success. The idea of this program reflects the great truth being emphasized here: A man can be crippled only in his mind.
One more modern-day testimonial. William lost his engineering job due to project closure. After several
weeks of negative searching, he was given an interview with another engineering firm. The interviewer told him
they were not hiring…but, he said, “We do have this position that we haven’t been able to fill because of
qualification requirements. You have those qualifications. Are you interested in the job?” William went to work
this morning.!
How easy it is to lose sight of our objective in life! We often exist from day to day, believing that the
most important thing is a kind of peace that means no problems, no changes, and no challenges. Life is for
living, and growing, and overcoming. Your purpose in life is to grow and develop as a person, to release your
own inner potential. It may be that there is no better place for you to do the growing than in the face of the very
thing you have, in sadness and self-pity, referred to as a handicap.
Life is for living. Start where you are and do what you can with what you have. What you can do depends
only upon your faith to believe that God is your all-sufficiency in all things.
Francis Mason
Pastor Mason