The Butterfly Effect

On Thursday evening I attended A Night of Inspiration at the Priory Grand Hall on the north side of Pittsburgh.  The event benefited White Fields Foundation, a group of Christian men who build relationships with one another through Bible Studies and missional serving opportunities.  Many of the men have served kids in the Homewood community through basketball and baseball outreach.  LAMP is also developing a partnership with WFF to provide mentoring for at-risk youth in Homewood.  Check out the WFF link on this blog to find out more information about the great work they are doing in Pittsburgh and around the world.

One of the things that struck me while I was at the event was a concept I often discuss with my wife called the butterfly effect.  The basic concept is that something as small as a butterfly flapping its wings can eventually have an impact on events that happen half way around the world (google it to find out more).  As human beings, every single thing we do in our lives, no matter how small, can have huge ramifications in this world... for either good or evil.  One small conversation, or a single moment in time, can send echos into eternity.  Our lives do matter.  God has set things up that way.  So, it's a wonder that so many American Christians are plodding through life with no real purpose other than elevating themselves and trying to live the American Dream when the ultimate purpose in life is found in the small things of life and in Christ's downward mobility (the opposite of the American Dream).  The small details of our lives matter.  God works in the lowly things of this world, the seemingly insignificant things, the achieve his purposes of redeeming all of humanity.

The butterfly effect was in full effect at the WFF event on Thursday night.  A guy named Tim Gaertner happened to be seated at my table of ten people.  He now lives in New York, but when I was in high school he was one of my youth leaders.  He had an amazing influence on my life, in terms of drawing me closer to Christ, in just a relatively short period of time.  Those seeds that he planted in me helped me to weather the storm of college, where I struggled greatly as a 17 and 18 year old kid.  The Lord's strength helped me hold it together until when I was 19 everything seemed to finally click for me.  Right at that point, I ran into a girl named Julie Gowan and I mustered up the courage to ask her out on a date.  From that one small moment in time, I found a best friend for life in my beautiful wife and the incredible mother of our two daughters.  Julie was seated at my table on Thursday night next to Tim Gaertner.  Long ago, during high school, Tim had introduced me to his brother, Brennan, who founded White Fields Foundation.  I bumped into Brennan at a men's breakfast a few years ago, and he invited me to a Tuesday morning WFF Bible Study.  By Brennan taking the opportunity to invite me to that, I have found deep, meaningful community with lots of Christian men from all over the city.  The leader of that Bible Study, Leo, is a pastor on staff with WFF.  He asked me if he could hang out with me in Homewood one day, and from that one visit hundreds of kids in Homewood have been reached with the gospel message of Christ through baseball and basketball outreach events.  On Thursday, Leo introduced me to the keynote speaker at the Night of Inspiration, Joe Ehrmann.  Joe delivered an amazing message about what it means to be a man who follows Christ.  He is a former NFL player and a current pastor at a church in Baltimore where he has a background of 25 years in urban ministry.  In my conversation with him, it turns out that he was mentored and greatly influenced by Ray Bakke.  And now I have been mentored and influenced by Ray Bakke.  It was amazing to see how God has worked through Ray to impact two men from different generations in different cities.

Life is all about relationships.  We can do great harm to other people through our relationships, or tremendous good.  It's up to us to choose.  And we must choose daily to build loving, intentional relationships with God, with our friends and families, with people we don't even know yet, and even with our enemies.  Every relationship matters over time, and God works through those relationships for his purposes.  Every little thing we do matters.  God's ways are mysterious, but the butterfly effect is a good analogy to describe how God is in control in this world and we are not.  Let's live every day like every little thing we do matters.