Everyone wants to be different, but very few people really want to make a difference. Making a difference is a nice idea, but actually making a difference has a price that all but a few are willing to pay.

“I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning…”

Irene Sendler

Do you know the story of Irene Sendler?

It is fascinating, terrifying and inspiring. Irene Sendler lived in Poland during World War II. The Nazis had invaded her country and were rounding up Jews and placing them in ghettos (preparing them for extermination). When you are faced with insurmountable odds you can either think of yourself or you can think of others. Most people simply think about themselves. In order to make a difference, a positive difference you must not count your life as valuable. You must lay your life down for others. Irene Sendler did this.

She was a social worker. This gave her access to the Jewish Ghettos. Now when she became a social worker did she think, “Hey, one day, I am going to win a Nobel Peace Prize for my efforts in helping children?” By her own admission, not a chance. She became a social worker to help others. But, she didn’t quit her job when the Nazis took over, she kept working. And her work gave her a social work card. This card allowed her access to the ghettos. And she got involved. She began smuggling Jewish orphans, babies and children out of the ghettos. She would place them with sympathetic Polish families who would raise them. Each child she smuggled out, she would place their name in a glass jar and bury it in the ground in hopes of reuniting children with parents after the war (very few were ever reunited as almost all of the parents were exterminated in camps).

What kind of a difference did she make?

She rescued some 2,500 children from certain death.

People that make a difference see a need and get involved. 

To make a difference in your world something drastic and dramatic must occur. But, most who desire to make a difference will not choose the drastic thing. Instead they will choose the easy thing, the convenient thing or the thing that benefits them the most. This drastic thing happens inside you at your very core where no one else can see, where no one else can touch, and no one else resides. What you must choose, because like taking an exit off the highway it is a choice of departure, is to intentionally forget about yourself. No, please do not forget to brush your teeth, wash your clothes or put on deodorant. In order to make a difference, you must get out of the way and get involved.

Every coach knows this to be true: Spectators never make a difference, but Participants do.

Making a difference is actually pretty simple. Most people who want to make a difference, don’t often know where to start. The good news is you don’t need a commission to make a difference, you don’t need money, you don’t need power, you don’t need a network and you don’t need vision. You just need to see a need and respond. Let’s make it simple…

Those who make a difference:

A. Live intentionally. When you live intentionally you don’t miss your moments. Your moments are your opportunities. Leonard Ravenhill said,

“The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity.”

You can waste your opportunities and miss your moments when you live unintentionally. An unintentional life is a life that lacks focus. An unfocused life, leads to a frustrated and often wasted life. Focus demands preparation and attentiveness. If you are only attentive to your needs, your wants and your wishes, then you will miss your moments and waste your opportunities. Opportunities don’t last for ever. So if you don’t seize the opportunity, then you will miss it. And when you miss, you don’t make a difference.

You say you want to make a difference in the lives of your children, your marriage or your employees, but merely thinking about something never made a difference. The way you rescue a drowning person is to jump in or throw them something (depending on your training). You don’t rescue a drowning person by watching from the shore shouting “You can do it!”  You get involved.

B. Live in their why. The stronger your why, the higher you can fly.

Knowing your why simply means your purpose, your calling and your motivation. Your why is where you build from, launch dreams from and make a difference in the lives of others from. People who live for the why-of-me make little difference in their world. They are always looking for someone to meet their needs and make a difference in their lives. Sadly today, many people today have no idea about their why, their purpose, their calling and subsequently their motivation is inward focused instead of outward focused.

Those who make a difference live in a different land.  This land can be anywhere on earth. When you have your why right, you begin to live in a new land. These difference makers live in the land of opportunity. The land of opportunity is full of optimism and positivity not depression and negativity. The land of opportunity is a mindset that is different from mere opportunity. Mere opportunity is unexpected and must be acted upon quickly. People who live in their why are looking for opportunity. When you live in the land of opportunity, you are on the hunt to help others and expect opportunities to open up.

C. Live in the light of eternity. Those that truly make a difference realize that they are small part of something much bigger than themselves. Those that don’t make a difference feel that they are a big part of something very small and insignificant. When you live in light of eternity, you begin to realize that there is always a next.

Have you ever woken up to not have a tomorrow?

There’s always something next. I mean if you’re breathing, then you’ve taken a next breath. If you’re walking, then you’ve taken the next step. If you went to sleep and woke up, then you’ve had a next day. Living in light of eternity gives you a different perspective on your life and the value of others’ lives. There is a next after this life. Those that make a difference realize that what you do in this life affects. Maximus (Russell Crowe) in the movie Gladiator said it well,

“What we do in this life echoes in eternity.“

As a Christian, I not only believe that what you do echoes in eternity, but that it is written in eternity. Your soul is stirred by eternity. Eternity is a gentle yearning on the soul of every man, woman, boy and girl that has ever walked upon the face of the earth. Our souls long for more, for higher and for freedom. These are the cries of eternity.  Jesus was crystal clear on this topic when he said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven” (Matthew 6:19-20). Those who truly make a difference value the eternal weight of people, especially the people closest to you.

D. They live in the library. The library is where we find stories. We find good stories and bad stories. Exciting stories and boring stories. There are only two places that you can live: fiction or nonfiction, fantasy or reality. Too many people spend their entire lives living in their own fiction section. Their story is fiction. A life of fiction is a life of self-deception. You can’t read yourself into a story that is already been written. Every person has a biography, but not every person has a biography worth reading.

I mean, Chick-fil-A, nailed it. They made a video called “Every Life has a Story.” It’s a vignette of walking through a restaurant and reading a caption that summarizes the story of each persons’ life both in front of and behind the counter. I tell my people all the time, we are not real people serving robots. We are not robots serving real people. We are significant people serving significant people. Seeing people as significant will make a difference in your world and their world. Treating people as significant will make even a bigger difference. The more significant you treat people, the greater the impact you can make in their life.

The greatest story ever told is the story of Jesus Christ. You want to study a story worth emulating? Study his story! If you don’t like your story, stop trying to change that which has already been written and start trying to write a new chapter. Turn the page. Get out of the fantasy and into the reality. Get out the fiction section and start writing your biography. The most powerful biographies are not the stories of great exploit and conquest, but the stories that impacted other people the most.

Conclusion

You don’t need a degree to make a difference. You don’t need money. You don’t need to be famous or appreciated. You simply need to be willingly, see a need and then respond to make difference. Irene Sendler saw a need, used what she had and did what she could. She paid a high price. Her ankles and wrists were broken from a beating at the hands of the Gestapo. She was sentenced to execution, but managed to be freed to live in hiding for the rest of the war. She wasn’t recognized until the end of her life. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She didn’t see herself as a hero. She said,

“The term ‘hero’ irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little.”

Those who respond make a difference, those who refuse are really no different at all.

(c) Alex Vann, 2017