Life is a choice

I was reading an article this week that said the average person has an impact on 10,000 lives! Their point was to inform people that your life has an impact on the world - you just need to decide (and make choices) to make that a positive or negative impact.

I think most of us WANT to make a positive impact on the world, but honestly, I never thought the average person would affect so many lives! I understand the ripple affect. You dip a stick in the pond and the ripples start the moment the stick hits the water. Our lives are like that. But 10,000?! That's a lot of ripples!

I think somewhere in our minds (at least mine) we assume that SOME people can have a lasting impact on our world. For instance, I know a pastor who once shared with his congregation that his great grandfather came to know Jesus because a missionary came to their country. His great grandfather passed that down to his grandfather, who passed the Good News onto his father, who passed it onto the pastor. Four generations of believers and pastors just because one person had the courage to share the gospel with a stranger.

That's the kind of story I think of when contemplating the information from the article. But the article was talking about the AVERAGE person. People just like you and me. But as I sit here today and let that sink in a bit, I can think of many people who have affected my life... and none of them are famous. Some aren't even brave or courageous - at least not publicly.

The people that have had the most positive impact on my life are the ones that SAW me - in the good times and the bad times. You know, those times when you want to disappear into the background because life is just to ugly to be in the light of day. Or when things look so good in public but are a trainwreck as soon as you shut the door behind you. The people that pay attention and notice when a smile is missing or a greeting is vague - they SEE you.

And just as the article pointed out, not everyone has a positive impact on your life. Sometimes the biggest impact has the most damaging affect. Every one of us can think of someone who hurt you, someone who put a scar on your heart. Those scars are hard to hide sometimes. Sometimes it takes a lifetime of trying to forget.

In Luke 10:29-37 Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan. A man going from Jerusalem to Jericho is attacked by robbers who strip him and beat him. A priest and a Levite pass by without helping him. But a Samaritan stops and cares for him, taking him to an inn where the Samaritan pays for his care. Samaritans were not simply outcasts: They were the despised enemies of the Jews. Yet where we would have expected a Jew to be the hero of Jesus’ story, instead we are shocked to hear that it is a Samaritan.

I'm thinking that poor beaten man along the side of the road was NEGATIVELY impacted by the priest and the Levite - people he thought or assumed would help him. Instead, the least expected person to help him saved his life. Why... because the Samaritan SAW him - not just as a Jew, but as a person.

God SEES each and everyone of us! In the good times and the bad, God sees and knows our heart. His unconditional love for us can have a life-lasting impact on our lives. He knows each of us profoundly - in the most detailed way. And those details started before we were ever born. Psalm 139 gives us an idea of the depth to which God knows us.

Psalm 139: 1-6

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

Psalm 139: 13-16

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

Knowing that God knows my every thought - that my days were written in His book, by His hands, before I was ever born - is just so overwhelming to me. There is no love like God's love. No one knows me like God knows me. And I know, at least for me, that I will never truly understand it until I stand before Him face to face.

The impact of God's love on my life has turned shame into mercy, hurts into forgiveness, and restlessness into peace. MY life is proof that our God is a God of miracles. And I'll never stop believing in miracles.