“What are you up to?” – “Nothing.”

“What’s new?” – “Nothing”

You would think we live in a boring word.  Nothing seems to be going on.  Maybe we answer “nothing” out of a sense of feigned humility.  We do not want to appear excited by our own life and events so as not to give the impression that we think more highly of ourselves than we ought.  However, we should be doing something. We should be learning something  or doing something new as we grow in Christ.  We are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works, which (God) prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (cf. Eph 2:10).

With that in mind, I want to share this poem I found in my files last week: (A Google search did not reveal author’s name.)

The Sin of Doing Nothing

He made no mistakes, took no wrong roads

               He never fumbled the ball.

He never went down ‘neath the weight of the load.

                He simply did nothing at all.

He lost no hard fights in defense of the right;

                He never bled with his back to the wall.

He never fell faint in his climb to the light;

                He simply did nothing at all.

So death came nigh, for life slipped by,

                Add he feared for the judgment hall.

When they asked him why, he said with a sigh,

                “I simply did nothing at all.”

So, God will pardon your blunders, my friend,

                Or regard with pity your fall.

But the one big sin that may surely mean hell,

                Is simply do nothing at all.