The Next Right Thing
Acts 1:1-11
Being the father of a toddler means sitting down and watching a lot of Disney movies on repeat. Lately, my daughter has been entranced with Frozen (both of them) and so I have had an opportunity to hear repeatedly some of the anthems in these movies.
The one that has stuck with me lately has been one near the end of Frozen 2, where Princess Anna, after learning of what she believes is her sister’s death is overcome with grief. She sings through the grief and finds an anchor to grasp on to. When it feels like everything is too much, she still remains capable of doing the “next right thing.”
“So I'll walk through this night
Stumbling blindly toward the light
And do the next right thing
And with the dawn, what comes then
When it's clear that everything will never be the same again?
Then I'll make the choice
To hear that voice
And do the next right thing”
“Frozen 2” ©2019 Walt Disney Animation Studios
When I am feeling overwhelmed by, well, everything today as a pastor who is concerned about the moral dimensions of what is going on in our society, I can cling to the idea of doing the next right thing. When I am struggling to understand everything that is going on, I can atleast understand the basics. I can take smaller moral steps that are connected to where I am. I can make smaller movements toward goodness.
All of us can. As Americans, we can choose to be overwhelmed by the onslaught that the news hands us of what is going on in our country, or we can choose to do simply the next right thing. It might be picking up trash in our neighborhood, doing simple acts of kindness, engaging with politics at a local level instead of trying to tilt at windmills at the federal level. It might be choosing kindness or choosing generosity.
This fits in with what we believe as Christians, for we already know that we can’t get everything right and that we are constantly in need of God’s grace. When the disciples watched Jesus ascend, they were probably feeling overwhelmed, too. Jesus was leaving them the massive task of making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything Jesus had commanded the disciples to teach.
In the face of that, instead of being paralyzed with the mountainous task before them, they just needed to do the next right thing. And so the same is true for us when we feel overwhelmed by what’s happening in the world, or anxious about the future of the church. Let’s just do the next right thing!
