“Do all the Good You Can!”          “And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.”  2 Thessalonians 3:13

John Wesley is attributed with the quote “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

While we hear and see this quote quite often, we don’t often reflect on what it is really asking us to do.

John Wesley is asking us not just to do good but to do all the good we can.  Not just to do all the good we can but by all the means we can.  This can be with our time, energy, finances, gifts and graces or any number of ways we can engage those on the margins and our neighbors to help them through our goodness.

But John Wesley doesn’t stop there either.  John says we must do all the good we can by all the means and ways we can in saying we have to do it everywhere and all the time!

Are you exhausted yet?

Well hold on to your horses because John Wesley continues to say that we must ALSO do good to all the people we can for as long as we can!

Ok, I need a nap just thinking about those expectations!  I’m joking of course but it is a reminder that our Christian call is a call to do good all the time and everywhere.  Our Christian call is not a Sunday morning call but a call to minister and do good everywhere we and other people are. 

Our scripture reading today tells us that we must never tire of doing good.  It isn’t a request but a command in our Christian life.  John Wesley reminds us that we must make doing good a cornerstone of our faith. 

Doing good looks alike a lot of things in La Junta.  We can do good by being kind to people at busy places like grocery shopping, government buildings, hospitals, and other places where people can be filled with anxiety and busyness.  We can volunteer with youth, the hungry (associated charities or Rocky Ford UMC food pantry), put together Matthew 25 bags to give out to homeless and destitute persons.

Can you think of ways that you can be the good in the world you navigate?  No doubt you can be the good at your work, school, church, senior center, or even your neighborhood?  May you be the good at all times and all places to all people and may you never tire.

May it be so,

Rev. Lou Ward