Back in June of this year, author, marketing expert, and blogger Seth Godin wrote what is perhaps one of my favorite blog posts of all times. Here it is:
When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.
It’s a simple message that I think we forget all to often – that we do, in fact, matter. We watch and read inspirational stories, fiction and nonfiction, of the huge events being influenced be the actions of a single individual. Then we sit at home and say, “That could never be me.” What we forget, though, is that it doesn’t matter that we may never be the one to turn the tide in a war, discover a cure for a terrible disease, save the planet from an asteroid.
The simple fact is, we leave footprints behind us wherever we go. We personally touch countless lives every day. Our words and our actions spread like ripples until we become the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, causing tornadoes in Texas. (If you don’t get that, you might want to read up on chaos theory mathematics and the butterfly effect.) Often, we don’t see our own effects on others, so we therefore assume it doesn’t exist. This leads us to conduct our lives as if it centers around ourselves, and we fail to look up and see how our choices impact others. Even if you don’t know it, you matter.
Being a Light to Others
As Christians, we should matter to the world the way Mr. Godin writes about. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls His disciples to be as salt, improving the flavor of the world around us. He calls us to be as a city on a hill, and I fear we have come to interpret this today as being loftier, more high-minded, more self-righteous than those around us; but what did a city on a hill represent to those living in Jesus’ day? That city was a place of refuge. It was safety and reassurance. Jesus goes on to say our light should shine before others in the goodness we spread. Likewise, I Peter 3:15 records the apostle Peter writing that we should be ready to answer for the hope within us. How can anyone ask about our hope if we are not spreaders of hope?
The Love You Give
The last song recorded by the Beatles, aptly named The End, contains this closing lyric: "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." How are you and I creating love around us? Mr. Godin says we should love our work and love those with whom we work. In the case of a Christian, our work is spreading the gospel, and we work with everyone. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says the greatest work we can fulfill is to love God and to love those around us. In John 13:35, He says that all will know us by the love we show, and I Corinthians 13:4-7 describes the love we should give.
Continuing with some of Mr. Godin’s related points, are we gracious and generous, putting others before self? Psalm 86:15 describes the God of whom we claim to be imitators as compassionate, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in mercy. Colossians 3:12-13 says we should wear kindness, mercy, humility, and forgiveness. Do we teach forgiveness over condemnation? Jesus forgave many we might have condemned had we been walking in the First Century. Would we have rebuked His empathy, His “bleeding heart?” Remember that Jesus calls us to be like lamp-stands in Matthew 5:15? To paraphrase Mr. Godin, does our loving and kind demeanor light up the room?
Striving for Excellence
Do people see us trying to improve the world around us, or do they hear nothing more than our complaints? Are we characterized by phrases like, “These kids today…,” or, “The problem with the world today…,” or griping and complaining about those who think differently than me? Do we fill our minds with the bile and vitriol of cable news and talk radio rather than filling our minds with the good things of Philippians 4:8-9. We can be a positive influence, encouraging those around us to do better. In Luke 13:20-21, Jesus likens His kingdom – that would be us – to leaven. What does leaven do? It spreads. It changes that which it touches. We can influence those around us for the better if we, as Gandhi might say, live the change we want to see.
Striving for excellence involves a certain amount of self examination as well. II Timothy 2:15 calls on us to give diligence in our work. This carries with it the idea of persistence or carefulness, walking circumspectly, borrowing from Ephesians 5:15. Even Paul, in Philippians 3:12-15, says he is continually pressing toward his goal, never assuming he has perfected himself. If we want to change the world for the better, we must start with ourselves.
Leaving the World a Better Place
This brings us to our last point – we are capable of leaving this world a better place. Again, we may not cause seismic events of global proportions, but we can improve the world in the small things we do. Like Christ, we can inspire the great or the small in the things we say and do. In John 3, He teaches a Jewish ruler and Pharisee named Nicodemus, and, a few chapters later in John 8:3-12, we see Jesus extending mercy to a humiliated adulteress, reiterating the statement about being a light to the world after this event.
As parents, as mentors, and as teachers, we can be the person who a child wants to be when they grow up. I remember, as a teenager, people like Marcus Boone, Ben Lanius, and Kevin Stockton were heroes to me. Whose hero are you? Are we an example of like that of Timothy in I Timothy 4:12 – an example in conduct, love, and faith? Someone looks up to you. What are you showing them? Your influence may last an hour, a month, or a lifetime, but that influence matters. As Heather Darling Cortes writes, “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
You Personally Matter to God
We matter to more than this world, however. We also matter to God. Have you ever taken verses like John 3:16 or Romans 5:10-11, substituting your name for the general nouns and pronouns? What about I Peter 5:6-7? Now, replace your name with someone else’s – perhaps your neighbor’s, a coworker’s, and family member’s. What happens if you read into those verses someone with whom you feel enmity? Do you now see them in a different light? How should that level of personalization affect your relationship with God and with others?
You matter. I matter. We matter in the ways we influence the world around us, and we matter to a God who invites us into His tender mercies. In the context of our conduct toward enemies, Jesus calls on us to show mercy like God’s in Luke 6:36. How can we, who long for God’s mercy, light, and forgiveness, neglect shining our light, showing mercy to others, teaching and demonstrating forgiveness? In Matthew 25:40, Jesus says He feels our compassion, our kindness, and our mercy when we demonstrate it to the most humble of individuals. Let us resolve to use the influence we do have in this world to be a force of goodness, knowing that we matter to others and to our Lord, and showing others that they matter just as much.
lesson by Robert Smelser
