The Power of One

I meditate a lot during my days. No, I don't sit in funny positions and hum while I do it. Many times, I am meditating as I go through my daily chores. My children hate it, because, to them, I am quiet a lot of times, but my thoughts are keeping me well-entertained!

Today's meditation was focused on the power of just one person. I know that is not a new concept, but I have never read a book or seen a movie by that title, so my thoughts are original with me. I think one time, one of the armed forces had some kind of campaign going about "an Army of One," and I thought at the time that it was an entirely stupid advertising ploy. Can you see some private telling his sergeant that he's going to sleep in a little today, because, after all, he is an army of one? I don't think so.

However, I do believe that there is a time when the power of one is an incredible force.

My thoughts were focused on someone today, and I was thinking about how the actions of one person can impact so many people in unimaginable ways. The person I was thinking about has no earthly idea how one act, one decision, affected scores of lives in both positive and negative ways, and actually, the effects continue even now. This is the "ripple effect" in action. Drop one pebble in the water and watch the ripples go out from the spot where the pebble was dropped. A pond can be disturbed from one shore to the other with a big enough rock!

That being said, how much does it behoove me to carefully consider the repercussions of all I say and do? Chances are, I will never even see most of what comes from my own words and actions. It will play out in so many different theaters of life that I could not possibly ever see all the "shows."

One little boy....2000 years ago....5000 hungry people....5 loaves, 2 fishes and Jesus. Jesus took the lunch of one little boy and impacted over 5000 peoples' lives that day.

My daily life....a card mailed, a phone call made, an email sent....words spoken to my husband and children, to a stranger in the grocery store, to 8,9, and 10 year-olds in Bible class....things done and left undone....every decision I make in a day's time to say something or not say it, to do something or not do it....all these things will impact someone in days or years to come.

That's heavy!

Take the most insignificant "job" in the world (in man's eyes) and tell yourself that doing it won't change anyone's life. You will be wrong. You will change the course of someone's life either for good or for bad. Many mothers hate their job because they think that wiping noses and bottoms all day long couldn't possibly be the least bit important in the grand scheme of things. That's fallacious and dangerous logic.

Sometimes, the decisions we make yield fruit quickly or in our line of vision. If only he had not decided to take that trip to town today, he wouldn't have been in the car crash....If only she had not married that louse, her life surely would have been easier....If only he had decided to be a doctor instead of an airplane pilot....and on and on it goes.

What is not easy to see are the actions that we take today that do not have immediate results or results that take place out of our hearing and seeing. Many times, we never know how some of our actions changed lives until many, many years later, when it is too late to undo what we foolishly or unknowingly did.

The power of one is more awesome than we believe it to be. As Aristotle said, "What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do." To do, or not to do----that seems to be the relevant question!