The increasingly secular and oppressive world in which we live seems to suffocate us at every turn. How can faith survive and grow in such an environment? Isn’t the world just too big and powerful for an individual to thrive – much less make it a better place?
Jesus Did It!
Given that the question in the title implies a despairing attitude, it is all the more important to remember that God chose to save the world through a single human life – Jesus of Nazareth. The following short essay – usually labeled “anonymous” or else attributed to James Allan Francis (1864-1928) – describes in poetic terms just how small an acorn produced so large an oak tree.
One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant.
He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30.
Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He didn’t go to college.
He never lived in a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
One of them denied him.
He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth.
When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race.
I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned–put together–have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.
To a lesser degree, and as a foreshadowing of the power of Jesus’ earthly life, we can also see how much God was able to grow from another little acorn that was a man named Abraham. Think of all the descendants that came forth from a man who only had one son with his wife -and that at a very late age. Think of all the good those descendants have brought the world – including Jesus Himself.
Regardless of how impossible it might seem to us that God could improve the world through just one human being, we know from these examples that, indeed, with God all things are possible.
The Worth of the Individual
Estimates of the world’s population at the time of Jesus run from 150 million to 300 million people. That’s not even as much as the current population of the U.S. alone, which is currently about 330 million. Consider also that the U.S. is less than 1/20th of the current world population, which is approaching 8 billion people. How in the world does God keep up with that many individuals?!
For one thing, He has a lot of angels. A whole lot. Jesus once said that all He had to do was ask and at least 72,000 angels would be put at His disposal (Matthew 26:53 – Specifically, Jesus said “more than twelve legions of angels” and a Roman legion consisted of 6,000 soldiers in those days). Jesus also said that God fashions the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:28-29; not to mention more exotic plants), feeds the birds (Matthew 6:26), keeps population counts on the sparrows (Luke 12:6), and even keeps population counts of the hair on every human head (Luke 12:7). Of course, Jesus is just giving us examples of the level of detail included in God’s knowledge; heaven has much more data on us than just these limited statistics! The point is that – to God – a single human being is valuable beyond any human measure.
Given the importance that God attaches to even a single human being, we have no reasonable basis for considering any person unimportant or unable to make an impact in the world. If an individual can have an impact on God, how much more on people!
Start with Your Neighbors
Practically everyone knows that Jesus said we should love our neighbors. What far fewer people seem to realize is the significance of the word “neighbor” in that statement. Jesus is not telling us to focus specifically on the people living on our street; rather, He’s telling us to love our “near ones” – the ones with whom we are closest. We can’t love 7 billion people, but we can love the people with whom we come in contact. The “neighbors” that should therefore be in view when it comes to this commandment are first and foremost the members of the family of which we are a part.
Everyone has a family. I’m talking mainly about the nuclear family. You are either a father, mother, or child in such a family. And you are only in one of these at a time. My wife and I were each part of separate nuclear families until we married and became our own. The children we brought into the world and raised were part of our nuclear family only until they left ours and started their own. “Love your neighbor” starts with the nuclear family of which you are a part.
If you doubt the impact you can achieve through your own family, reconsider Abraham and how much effect he had on the world by pouring his ideas about God into Isaac. If we’re going to effectively co-labor with God, we have to think multi-generationally. If God had to limit Himself to what could be accomplished in a single generation, He’d be eternally frustrated.
If you want to have maximum impact on the world, don’t seek to enlist God in your efforts – seek rather to join His. He begins with individuals, but only that He might reach families and generations.
A Bible Reader's Website 