While attending Asbury Seminary in
the late 1970s, I became re-acquainted with David Thompson. He had grown up in
the same church from Austin, Minnesota in which I had accepted Christ and found
my first grounding as a Christian. He was a professor of the Old Testament. One
evening, I went to his home quite discouraged. Now, I do not remember details,
but I was in particular discouraged with my discipleship. Some people had some
wonderful, powerful experiences to which they could refer. I could not.
Finally, as I was wrestling to get out what I was sensing, he said something
like this. “George, you have made such awesome strides over the years. I
remember when I first saw you in Austin, Minnesota at the church. You were such
a shy and backward person. When I see you now, I am amazed at what God has
done.” Then, he told me the shocker: “George, when I preach around the country
about spiritual growth, you are one of my examples. I have one example of
people who make a dramatic and emotional turn-around in their lives. I have
another example of people who make steady, regular, steps of faith as their
discipleship path. You are that example.”
I am thinking of this long-ago
conversation because it still summarizes my approach to discipleship. Of
course, I celebrate the major steps of faith that people can take. Nevertheless,
right now, I want to celebrate the small steps people may take every day.
Luke 17:5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The
Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to
this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey
you.”
The disciples were thinking that they needed a large-sized faith.
However, even the small faith, the size of a seed, can have major implications over
the course of a life. If I could use the text as an analogy for a moment, you
might hardly notice it from day to day. However, over the course of a life, you
may well have told a mulberry tree to move from its place on land and go to the
sea, and it obeyed.
In fact, I came across a little article that reminds us that each of
has such power in the steps we take.
Every time you take a step, you
generate six to eight watts of energy. But then — poof! — it dissipates into
the air. If only you could capture it.
An architectural firm in London is
now looking at ways to capture that energy on a large scale and turn it into
electricity. For example, 34,000 people walk or dash through Victoria Station
in one hour, rushing toward their trains. The firm’s director says, “If you
harness that energy, you can actually generate a very useful power source.”
According to Fast Company,[1]
this architectural firm is working to develop vibration-harvesting sensors. They
would implant these sensors in the structure of train stations, bridges,
factories or any other building frequently traveled by commuters, vehicles or
machinery. The devices could capture the rumblings of all this activity, turn
them into electricity, and then store it in a battery.
All of us need to make such steady
changes to bringing us closer to the person God wants us to be. We might have
some surprise at how that change takes place in most of us. We might need the
gift of someone else seeing the changes and telling us what he or she sees.
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