Archibald Campbell Was a Nobody

Archibald Campbell was a nobody. He was one of the thousands of Americans living in Revolutionary War times. No tv stars will ever tell us how it was "200 years ago today" with Archibald Campbell. Archibald Campbell was a school teacher.

All he did was teach the boys around Fredericksburg, Va. He tossed out ideas to them. He made his boys read and think. He challenged their imaginations. He was an insignificant school teacher that few people remember.

Do you ever feel like a nobody? Only daydreams succeed for some people. Are you one of them?

Greatness is destined for the very few. Earthshaking accomplishments might not be your fate. The only way your name would get into a history book is if you put it there....inside the front cover, with your address!

There may be thousands of names in somebody's "Who's Who" book, but there are billions of nobodies that make a society social, a religion practcal, and a life liveable. Without the nobodies who live their faiths everyday, work their jobs with pride and conscience, and really try to "love their neighbor as themselves," no society could survive and no great cause could prevail.

The truth is that nobody is a nobody in God's eyes. Everybody is a somebody. In fact, everybody is a somebody special. God wouldn't send His Son to die for a bunch of nobodies. Neither would he entrust a mission so great to nobodies. We are all somebody special.

In the church that I pastor there is a plaque that someone donated. I often read it when I think I am the "World's Greatest Nobody."

The familiar quotation reads: "I am only one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do I ought to do and what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I will do."

If all so-called nobodies could do this, we'd all feel like the somebodies we really are. Yes, Archibald Campbell was a nobody. But his life was not wasted. No one remembers Archibald Campbell, but no one will forget three of his pupils.... George Washington, James Madison and James Monroe.

[ by Rev. Larry Martin -- from 'Aiken Drum' (Aiken@AikensLaughs.com) ]