My grandbeans and I stood before a gem of a pond a while ago. Pondering its glassy surface, admiring its copycat sky, and wondering if it was too deep to cross.
"Nana," said one, pondering. "You need a stick, like Moses. Then we could cross it."
Having no Egyptians in hot pursuit, and no Moses staff to raise, I suggested that instead, we just throw pebbles in the water. The children scrambled back to the nearby roadside and returned with fistfuls of rocks, some tiny and some not so. Then they began tossing and talking at the same time.
See the circles, Nana? What would happen if we hit a frog? Nana, what if I fell in? You would catch me, right? See that big circle? Then I would be dripping and you would have to carry me home, right? Right, Nana? Right? Nana, why do the rocks make circles? Why are we throwing rocks? Why is throwing rocks fun? Why do the circles break up the sky? Look, Nana. Your circle touched my circle! But we should never throw rocks in windows, right? Or at people, right? Right, Nana?
(They talked circles around me. They always do.)
The Beans clapped and cheered when the larger rocks landed. They made big splashes and wide ripples that sailed clear to the other side of the pond. In contrast, the little rocks barely made a splash. Got no applause.
We carried on like that, tossing and talking and laughing over each others' splashes for some time. Then I noticed that one of the smallest beans had picked up only small rocks. They didn't fly far from shore, and they didn't splash much. Most just slipped quietly beneath the water. Nevertheless, each stone caused a perfect, gentle ripple.
"Watch that, honey." I said after she tossed another pebble. "Watch the ripples. Let's see how far they go." To both our surprise, they reached the opposite side of the pond. Thinking that strange, we tried again with another pebble. Those ripples too, reached the far side of the pond.
Suddenly I thought of how long I tiptoed around the pond of life, admiring the big rocks around me, and the big splashes they made. Embarassed, fearful even, to throw in the pebbles God had placed in my hand.
Fellow follower, when you feel that all you have and all you are is little more than pea gravel, remember this: From God's perspective, it's never the noise and the splash we make that determines our eternal influence - it's the ripples we can't even see from our side of the pond.
Whatever God has placed in your hand, toss it, my friend. Someone may be waiting for just that ripple to float them to the other side. And never forget: even a pebble thrown in Jesus' name ripples for eternity.
