You Can Make a Difference

I have seen that even a few can make a difference.

You don’t need an army, a troop or a squad to make a difference in the world. You don’t need an organization an institution or legislation to make a difference. You don’t need skills, money or resources to make a significant impact. You don’t need the right social standing, bank account or organizational position to make a difference. You don’t need the right background, pedigree or degree to make a difference.

Little ‘ole common, ordinary and unremarkable you can make a difference. Single, seemingly insignificant people, have been transforming the world one step, one word and one day at a time.

Irena Sendler was one such common person who acted with uncommon conviction she made a difference and changed her world. Irena lived during World War II in Poland. After the Nazis invaded her country and began rounding Jews and confining them to the ghettos, she took bold steps to make a difference. Posing as a sanitary inspector for the ghettos, she smuggled over 2,500 Jewish children out of the ghettos and placed them with sympathetic Polish families. Her actions landed her with the Gestapo to be tortured, abused and crippled, but she didn’t divulge any of the families or children. Irena chose to act on her convictions. She made a difference. It seems impossible for 1 = 2,500, but it wasn’t.

Don’t buy the lie, that you have to “be somebody to get something done.” You, starting where you are, can make a difference in the world one life, one moment, one interaction and one relationship at a time. But you must believe what seems, looks and feels impossible could be possible. 

The world is filled with problems. Smart people, rich people, powerful people and popular people offer solutions. Are these people really making a difference? The world seems to be getting worse, not better? Something just doesn’t add up? Who can make a difference? 

Difference is a mathematical term describing the remainder of a subtraction problem.

People who will whole-heartedly trust God and follow Jesus Christ by faith can and will make an eternal difference on this earth. God’s math from the throne of heaven does not compute the same way it computes on earth. Instead of needing a superior number on top and the inferior on the bottom to get a positive outcome, God places the inferior number on top and still gets a superior number as a result—we see this over and over again in the stories of the Bible and among those who are still following God to this day.

The natural world cannot compute faith. Faith is an intangible multiplier that causes great consternation to the logic and order of the world. But, this should not sound so unreasonable, because if you make the rules you, then according to your prerogative you can also make exceptions to the rules. Since God made the rules, His exceptions are those of faith.

When Peter walked on water, it was uncommon faith. When Noah built an ark for 100 years, it was exceptional faith. When Rahab hid the spies, it was remarkeable faith. When Abraham followed God with no direction but “go,” it was amazing faith. When Joseph stayed committed despite being abandoned, enslaved and imprisoned in Egypt, it was exceptional faith. Every act of faith that God blesses is an exceptional act of faith. There are no insignificant numbers, just as there is no insignificant faith. The Christian must never discount exceptional faith. For faith is always God’s exception to earth’s equations.

Faith is a conundrum to the world’s system of accounting. The world has been ordered by Christ. The world is held in place by Christ. Faith is his allowable exception to his rule.

How did 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes feed 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21)? How did 300 of Gideon’s army defeat 135,000 Midianites (Judges 7)? How did one Man die for the sins of all (2 Corinthians 15:5)? I could go on and on spanning at least 5 or 6 millennia of human history…

Simply put, the math does not add up. The world’s solution is to discount the story. Logic and reason scream “impossible!”  God’s answer is to multiply the x-factor—faith. When faith, genuine and unperverted enters the equations and problems of life, God’s math multiplies an outcome that previously looked, seemed and felt impossible. The Bible is clear that “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

Convictions are where courage collides with faith. The world needs men and women of deep conviction. Convictions establish the formula of faith as a constant in the life of one who will continue to seek God despite adversity, conflict or trial. If you are going to make a difference, then you will be a man or woman of conviction.

You want to make a difference? Exercise faith. Move forward in faith, ask by faith, stand by faith, love by faith, live by faith, rest in faith and work by faith. In order for this math to actually compute, the object of the faith must be Jesus Christ, not simply the faith itself. The faith must be applied to Jesus Christ because “in Him all the fullness” of God dwells in human form (Colossians 1:19).

Are you a difference-maker? You don’t have to be popular, powerful or polished. You don’t have to be a performer, politician or pundit.  You simply have to take one-step of faith at a time. Stop trying to run the whole journey in a day.

The difference you make is in the God you trust.

“for we walk by faith, not by sight“

2 Corinthians 5:7