ONE STEP ENOUGH
Robert Meyers

I once heard a speaker deliberately misquote Mark 2:9, reading it this way: “Stand, take up your bed, and talk.” Since the misquoter was himself busy talking, I presumed that he did not rule out that exercise entirely as a useful human endeavor. But he was stressing the idea that the most important thing a Christian can do is walk, not talk.

Talking is so easy that the men who do it with some facility are always in deadly peril. “My brothers, not many of you should become teachers, for you may be certain that we who teach shall ourselves be judged with greater strictness.” (James 3:1).

The problem is that people who talk a great deal often convince themselves that they have done a great deal. They confuse the energy it takes to talk with the quite different energy of doing. They think great deeds verbalized are great deeds accomplished.

The paralysis is contagious. It is also easy for those who listen to believe that the future’s dream has already been realized, simply because the words that describe it have erupted into air. So strong are these convictions that it is frequently hard to get people to act after they have heard words endlessly.

But what Jesus really said was, “Take up your bed, and walk.” Put one foot before the other, take one step at a time, and discover the joy of getting someplace! We cannot play Giant Stride very often; it is essentially a children’s game. But we can faithfully put one step ahead of the other until, lo and behold! we have gotten somewhere.

I am made to remember Cardinal Newman’s famous hymn, Lead, Kindly Light. It was composed when he was becalmed in a fog on a boat bound from Sicily to Marseilles. Newman was on his way back to England after a visit to Rome. Religiously, he was terribly vexed and torn by conflicting emotions. In this lyric, he sought and found peace of mind.

One part of it has been especially meaningful to me. Newman prays that God will keep his feet, then says humbly: “I do not ask to see the distant scene—one step enough for me.” One step enough for me. No sweeping vision requested, no vast panorama of all that God intends, but only the step just ahead of one.

Grant us wisdom, O God, to place one foot ahead of the other to do the simple tasks that lie right under our eyes, and to avoid the distractions caused when we try, vainly to look further into the future than we can possibly see. Amen.