I hope you are doing well today. There is so much going on in our community that it’s hard to find peace some days. Please take some time each day, even if it’s just a few minutes, to step away and just seek stillness. It is so worth it when you do! Last week I had a moment where all was still and peaceful. It was great and then I threw a stick. Allow me to explain.
I was standing by a small pond in NE Kansas. We were in a hilly area surrounded by trees and the water in the pond was completely still. It was like a sheet of glass and you could see a perfect reflection of everything around the pond. The sight was beautiful! So, I did what most guys would do, I threw in a stick. The splash of that simple stick sent a ripple across the entire surface of the pond. The perfect stillness of the water’s surface was disrupted by mesmerizing waves. I’ve seen this happen many times but for some reason this instance made me think about my impact on the world as a Christian. I snapped a few pictures to try to capture what I had just witnessed and came home to do some research. I now know more about waves than I did before last week.
I have always thought that a rock or stick dropped in water created waves that were taking water away from the impact spot. The rippling effect gives us this illusion but that’s not exactly what happens. The energy from the splash (which is a displacement of water molecules) dissipates out along the surface of the water. The surrounding water molecules move up and down creating the peaks and valleys of the waves. When the water molecules move up, they drag the other molecules next to them up. Then they move down, dragging the molecules next to them down too. This up and down movement create the peaks and valleys I saw on the surface of the pond (see two the pics below). The water molecules never move away from the stick I threw in, they simply moved up and down.
What do water molecules have to do with my impact on the world as a Christian? Probably nothing. I will tell you this. How we live impacts those around us and then it spreads. Our neighbors are affected by how we live whether they wanted it or not. Our actions will cause some sort of change in their life (physical, mental, or even spiritual). A change in the life of my neighbor will then impact others that they interact with. This cycle will continue for many “ripples” that we will never see. Eventually the ripple effect will subside but hopefully what’s left is a new state of stillness in our community that was even better than the one before. You and I will at times be the stick thrown into the completely still pond. I believe that if we live the life Jesus asks us to live, the ripples resulting from our actions will have a good impact on the world! As a result, what was once still and beautiful will once again become still but even more beautiful!
I hope I was able to articulate to you today what was on my mind. I easily forget that my life impacts many others beyond me that I will never even know. If I simply live out the love of Jesus with everything I do, the ripple effect my actions will have on the world will leave it a better place!
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