“WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?”

By Keith Phillips

“Contentment isn’t getting what you want, but wanting what you’ve got,” says David Ring, a motivational speaker who talks to more than 200 audiences and 100,000 people each year. What makes the quote and his busy schedule truly remarkable is the fact that David Ring has had cerebral palsy since birth. He can hardly walk. He can hardly talk. Yet he speaks with such positiveness, humor (“God never says ‘Oops!’”), and depth that audiences flock to hear him and go away changed.

After a friend gave me a recording of one of David Ring’s talks, like hundreds of thousands of others, I was convicted by his challenge: “I’ve got cerebral palsy. What’s your problem?” His message is simple and clear. Refuse to give in to despair or self-pity. Don’t gripe or become bitter over bad things that happen, but embrace life, trust that God knows what He’s doing, and let Him get on with it.

“If you don’t like the way I am,” Ring tells his audiences, “hang in there. I’m still in the oven. God’s still working on me, and when God gets finished cooking me, He’s going to pull me out of the oven and say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’”—a pun on Matthew 25:21.

Another spiritual principle that is borne out in Ring’s life is that if we can be genuinely thankful for even the seemingly bad things, God will bless us with more good things. Ring is not only successful and in high demand as a motivational speaker (his 200 audiences per year are chosen from over 700 invitations), but he is happily married and the father of four beautiful, healthy children.