A Cup of Grace – with a shot of espresso

Over the last several years we have been allowing the milkweed to flourish in a section of our back pasture. We avoid mowing it and allow it to go through the whole life cycle. Monarchs love milkweed. In fact, all manner of butterflies, birds, bees and beetles are drawn to the large flower heads. By the end of July, walking past that milkweed patch was a little like being in a Disney princess movie. Humming birds, monarchs, swallowtail butterflies, and “lesser butterflies” chased each other back and forth over the flowers and across our path. Every walk was a delight. On one walk I counted something in the vicinity of fifty monarchs alone darting and floating about me. 

Then last week, while we were in Honduras, our pharmacist on the team gave a morning devotional that made me see more in those butterflies flitting around my backyard. Darrel shared the work of Edward Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist.

In the 1960s, Lorenz was running equations on a computer that were simulations of weather patterns. He discovered that making even the minutest change (using the number .506 instead of .506127) resulted in very different weather predictions. This became known as the “butterfly effect.” The point is that in complex systems (like weather) even the smallest change (thus the metaphorical “flap of a butterfly wing”) has the potential to create dramatic effects in the future. 

Do I think that the monarchs in my backyard were causing storms in far flung places in the future? I have no idea. I trust the God who holds all things in His hands to work out things like weather systems. Rather, Darrel’s point, and what I have been thinking about instead, is a system even more complex than the weather. Human interaction and reaction.

We all know, factually anyway, that we are not islands. We know that what we do and say affects others and that what others do and say affects us. But, when I really contemplate that idea, I come to two very important understandings. 

The first is that even the smallest word or gesture from me has the potential to have long term effects on someone else, who in turn may influence another, and the effect continues on into the future far beyond my eyes or comprehension. The sobering thought is that I hold in my hand the power to do great good or great evil. (If you haven’t read James 3, he offers serious cautions on how we speak to others. Proverbs 18:21 puts it even more succinctly, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue….” ) 

The second realization is that I too am the beneficiary of the “flutter of many wings” in my past. I can see some of the immediate ones: the opportunity offered to be a camp counselor that resulted in my going into education; the encouragement of a translator on one of our mission trips to start a blog; the models of having a quiet time given by my parents and camp counselors. These are just a few that have popped to mind. My life is full of others.

However, the flutters begin before those instances as each of those people were themselves affected by others then brought across my path with the right words and timing. I cannot follow their lines of connection for who knows how many generations they go back. 

Here’s the interesting thing about God’s design. Each of those “flutters” offer me a choice in which way to be “blown.” The negative things said to me (like the professor who told me I would never be a writer; or the friend who rejected me) offered me choices too. The positive things made it easier to have positive responses but didn’t guarantee them. The negative things made it easier to have negative responses, but again, didn’t guarantee them. 

So I’m left with a couple of important conclusions. The first is that I want to create as many Godly flutters in the lives I brush up against as I can. Oh that God would use even my smallest efforts to help create a raging thunderstorm for Him in the future. 

The second conclusion, is that choosing my response to those negative things is equally important. Will I allow that “evil” thing said or done to me to be passed on in the way I interact with others? Will I choose not to do good because it is the harder choice? Or will I trust that God knows what He is doing when He tells me to forgive, to love, to allow Him to be the Judge. 

I have a tendency to look for “the big impacts” that I might have on others. I focus on relationships built. I think of the heavy, deep and real conversations I get to engage in. But I know that some of flutters that I think are small, a passing comment, a gesture of generosity, a moment of grace, a text sent, a phone call made create small breaths of wind that the Holy Spirit uses for His purposes, unseen by me. 

What flutters have influenced you? What did you do with those? Let me encourage you not to let those negative breaths of wind push you away from your Maker.  He promises that He is more than capable of using anything for good in those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. (Romans 8:28) And if you find evidence of good “breaths of air” from others, I challenge you to soar on them and use them to pass on good.

When I get to heaven, I don’t know if God will allow me to see the effects I have had on others. How far beyond me did they go? Part of me wants to know, and part of me is scared to look. I take great comfort that He is the Great Designer. He invites me to join Him. What an honor that is! But it is not a given. I must choose to accept the invitation.

No matter where you are in life, your age, your position, your mood or health- the potential for both great good and great evil rest in you. You are the butterfly whose wing strokes matter in ways you may never know or see. May God use you to great effect for His glory.