I watched a youtube video today on the butterfly effect by Andy Andrews. It was really interesting about the way one person can make such an impact literally on generations sometimes in a single moment. I put the link (the first of 3 each under 10 min) below for those interested in watching it.
In life we seem to have those moments of impact. Maybe not to quite the extreme of the billions of people that Andy talks about in one of the videos, but I think we've all had them. I've had several of those moments where I'm not exactly sure why they are significant in the moment but I believe that they are. Maybe it has something to do with this "butterfly effect". I once had a thought about fireworks and how our lives are often like them. Sometimes people know who set them off, other times people just seem them from a distance having no idea who set them off, but even if just for a moment get a glimpse of beauty and are filled with joy.
I can think of 3 instances off the top of my head that I have felt that. One was in a gym with someone asking me some questions about my faith that I had no idea how to answer, but I went home that night and starting studying looking for the answers to those questions. That day I saw this incredible potential in this person who asked me the questions that I couldn't explain, and still can't, but I am confident that it is there. That day too, I made a decision to do something that scared me to death but did it anyway because I believed it was what I needed to do. I wrote down what I learned and dropped it in his pickup, just hoping he wouldn't find it til I was gone. haha I wasn't so brave back in those days, but I've wondered since, if I had let that fear win out would I have continued that pattern over the years?
Another was in a classroom with someone asking if I had ever read the Bible all the way through. I don't remember if I had or not, but I made a decision then to do so either for the first time or once again. It spurred me on to continuing to do what I thought was important. And once again I saw potential in someone, that just maybe they were hungering for something more, something important, something that lasts.
The last was after a big rainstorm sitting in the stands at a football game. Someone was walking past and we made eye contact and then sat in the stands behind me and talked to my friend, they were former classmates. We started talking some here and there after that... you know those easy conversations not the forced ones, and from that I was able to move on from something that wasn't meant to be, but that I had clung to for almost two years. And that potential and hope for that person's future to be blessed and to find those good things came once again.
Since these moments I have started praying for each one off and on through the years, I don't always understand it or even see it, but I believe that God works in our lives in amazing ways. Maybe I didn't have the same impact on them that they had on me, but I am certain that God can do incredible things when we ask Him. And maybe that is what my part is meant to be in their lives. Maybe that is why those moments impacted me the way that they did, because maybe they are meant to do incredible things in their lives, and my role is to call upon the One who can bring out that potential and mold and shape their lives into something amazing.
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8: 28 (ESV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnrz9HGjj_U&feature=related
