No matter who you are, you can make a difference

It is easy to feel small and insignificant in this world. Especially when you see the movers and shakers of the political, business, cultural, and entertainment world hobnobbing with each other behind closed doors only coming out to wave to the adoring crowds and dispensing their vision for your life. In a world that stresses individual freedom and the power to be whatever you want to be, it must be horribly galling to recognise that it is the decision-makers of this world who are the ones defining your life. They determine what you eat, where you go and what’s good for you. These overlords choose when the world slips into recession, and what slice of the pie you get to have. Truth be told, you are not the captain of your ship. You are being taken for a ride and you have no say in it. Well, that’s not totally true. You see, no matter how small and insignificant you think you are, you can make a world of difference in how things work. Take these two

KENYATTA E. LEWIS

Kenyatta Lewis is the pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, a growing church committed to taking followers of Jesus deeper and going further in their faith. Besides loving, serving, and helping people he has watched the extended Director’s cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy multiple times.

ladies, Ruth and Naomi. They lived during a time of gross immorality, lawlessness, and evil (see last week’s article on the time of the Judges). They were both widows after losing their husbands. They were both childless- Naomi, the older woman, had lost two sons in addition to her husband- skill less and poor. As a matter of fact, the future looked equally bleak for both of them. Naomi was so despondent that she gave herself a nickname, “mara”. If you speak Hebrew you would know that “mara” means “bitter”. That’s how bad things were for her. They were not close to the power brokers of the day, to the point that they had to depend on the generosity of a farmer named Boaz to get enough food to survive. And yet they changed history. But not in the way you think. They did not invent or write anything, they lived quiet, faithful, obscure, ordinary lives. So how did they do it? Well, Ruth, Naomi’s daughter-in-law, while looking for food stumbled upon the farm of a relative of her mother-in-law who allowed her to pick up some of the harvested crops that fell from the reapers. However, her dedication, hard work, and integrity soon got the attention of a few people. To the point that her benefactor, Boaz (he owned the farm she was working on) began to take extra notice of her. When Naomi recognised this she instructed Ruth to show her interest in Boaz, which she did. Before long they got married and had a bouncing baby boy. He had a grandson named David. That grandson was the greatest king of Israel and had a descendant who was the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus. Because of him, the world is a different place today, and one day, everything that is broken Jesus will fix.

Ruth changed the world, because she acted with integrity and faithfulness, though she was poor and had to eke out a living by begging for food. She worked hard, she did not complain about her plight and she trusted the advice of those who loved her. More than anything, she believed in the one true God, Yahweh. And because she did, though she was one woman in a big bad world she made a world of a difference.

And you can too. Right where you are, even if you are doing the same things day in and day out. Work hard, walk in integrity and righteousness, and worship the true God.