A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, you can’t help feeling the enormous
pressures of our culture against our faith. I sometimes feel like Nik Wallenda, the 
first person ever to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope without a net. The opposition
to our faith is forbidding, the stakes are heart-rending, the drop into the abyss of
failure frightening. But it is not easy to discern what to fight for earnestly and what
to tolerate.
How can we keep a sane balance, a heart to serve Christ at any cost, without
isolating ourselves from the culture we must engage if we are to reach them with the Gospel?
An example of those stresses: which do you feel is more important—
A strong, verbal witness to unbelievers or a clean, godly life lived before them?
Unconditional love for your child or careful, consistent discipline?
A clean, orderly home, or a flexible, comfortable home?
A strong rebuke of a fellow employee who ignores company rules or an easy friendship?
“Unfair!” you protest, they are all important.” That’s the correct answer, of course. God wants
us to balance the priorities in our lives, not neglecting any essentials. But it is so easy to lose that
perspective in the midst of the stresses of life.
One morning I went to the garage, on my way to buy groceries. One of our teenagers had left the
other car a trifle askew in the driveway—just enough to make me fearful of denting a fender. So I
assiduously watched that fender as I gingerly backed the Oldsmobile out of the garage. I was startled by
a horrendous splintering of wood. In my earnestness to avoid that fender, I had gently and carefully
pulled off the left door facing of the garage door.
I tearfully told my husband. He, with pursed lips, nailed the mutilated facing back on.
The next morning, when I was pulling the Olds out of the garage again, you can be very sure I
didn’t touch that left, mutilated door frame. Oh, no, not on your life. I’m too smart to do it two days in a
row.
Instead, I shattered the right door facing. Tearfully, I told my husband. With pursed lips, he
nailed the shattered facing back. If I’d kept my balance, I’d have kept all three obstacles in mind.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, who were meticulous about giving God even one-tenth of their
spices, “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by
justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone” (Luke
11:42). I’m not to lose perspective. I’m to keep my balance.
This explains some of the apparent contradictions in Scripture. Galatians 6:2
commands, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” But three verses
later, God says, “For every man shall bear his own burden.” Proverbs 26:4 says, “Answer not
a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” But tne next verse says,, “Answer a fool
according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit”; We must give a thoughtful, balanced
response to each situation as it arises.
But I am not always wise enough to perceive the way God wants me to handle a choice. That’s
why I’m comforted with God’s promise in James 1:6:
If any of you lacks wisdom,
let him ask of God,
who gives to all liberally and without reproach,
And it will be given to him.
Our gracious, wise God will give us wisdom if only we ask, and He will do it generously,
“without reproach.” We need not fear the challenges of our culture. We do not need to meet them
alone. God will give us the strength and the wisdom we need, if only we seek Him.