Editorial January 23, 1995 Issue

A world in need of healers

William E. Moody

In Mary W. Tileston's book Daily Strength for Daily Needs, she includes this verse from the New Testament: "Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness" (Col. 1:10, 11).

Ms. Tileston follows this Bible passage with the words of Frederick William Robertson, an English clergyman: "It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but using well the tools we have."^{Daily strength for Daily Needs (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994), p. 89 .}

If we were to look at the world around us and merely begin to count off all its troubles—crime in the cities, ethnic conflicts, regional wars, organized hatred and prejudice, wide-scale deprivation and poverty in underdeveloped countries, child abuse, disease, environmental pollution, the destruction of major biospheres, the ongoing extinctions of plant and animal species, and so on —it would be easy to fall into the mental attitude of hopelessly "regretting what is irreparable." And should we then look at what might appear to be only our own meager resources with which to combat these evils and be "fruitful in every good work," it would be just as easy to find ourselves sadly "complaining that we have not the right tools."

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