The great pianist Artur Rubinstein said: “As long as we have what we have inside, the capacity to love, to work, to hear music, to see a flower… nothing can stop us from being happy…but we must get rid of the ifs . Many people say, ‘I would be happy if I had a certain job, or if I were better looking, or if I married someone else.’ There isn’t any such thing. You must live your life without the ifs.”
Those wise words remind me of Jesus’ story about the rich man who entrusted various amounts of money to three servants. The first two doubled what they’d been given and were equally commended, while the third, resentful that he’d received less than the others, buried his and was condemned. The message is that when the final accounting comes, the only ‘if’ that will count will be if we’ve used what we’ve been given.