Did you ever go to a pond or a lake and skip rocks? We did that often as kids and held competitions. We took our time to find the best rocks. The flat ones skipped the best. Ever so often I would try to find a big rock to see if I could make it skip. Normally they just made a splash and sunk.
Who are the people you influence? If you use your mind even a little when reading you are probably asking what skipping rocks has to do with influence. Stay with me. Back to our question. Who are the people you influence? A spouse? Sibling? Friends? Co-workers? I'm betting you have influence over someone.
Now think a little bigger. At the end of your life what impact will you have had? Most of us are pretty ordinary. We are like pebbles skipped across the water. The after effects leave ripples. Some pebbles are bigger than others and leave larger and more far reaching ripples. No matter what the size of the pebble they all leave ripples of varying degrees.
We cannot afford to use our ordinariness as an excuse for not making some kind of splash. In the hands of God we can impact our families, churches, and communities. The ripples of our lives must be both seen and felt by those around us.
God calls some people to be boulders. Their lives will make a bigger splash. Sometimes such lives don't leave ripples. They leave waves. I am referring to people in history like Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, Amy Carmichael, John Wesley, George Whitfield, D.L. Moody, Mother Teresa, and Billy Graham. Their lives made huge waves as they served Jesus. The masses have often been caught up in the wave of their influence.
What I am advocating is that whether God calls us to leave ripples or waves we need to make a splash. If God has called you to be a pebble then make the biggest splash you can make trusting the ripple effect to make a difference. If God called you to be a boulder then make a splash and trust the waves of your life will reach far and wide.
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