As a kid during the summer months, I would ask my mom if I could walk to the YMCA to play basketball all day.
She wouldn’t let me because the Y was a forty-five-minute walk from home.
Our neighbors across the street, however, had a basketball court in their driveway, and they allowed me to play on it anytime I wanted.
But I didn’t want to play in a driveway. I wanted to play in the gym at the Y.
So, one day, while my mom, my sister Erika, and I are in the kitchen, I’m begging my mom to let me walk to the Y.
She doesn’t.
Erika blurts out, “Work with what you got ’til you get what you want!”
I respond, “I got the Y.”
My mom says, “No! You got . . . across the street.”
What my mom and Erika were saying was, “Use what you have.”
Similarly, rather than focus exclusively on what you don’t have, make use of what you do have. Use the resources, and the opportunities, and the gifts God has given you.