The Ripple

The pond is calm and still on the surface.  While ‘water life’ moves about searching for food, dodging larger predators among the plant life surviving in its depth, the surface seems unaffected by the lower activity.  However, only a small pebble dropped onto the surface stillness can cause the fish to scamper to safety and disturb the surface with ever increasing ripples, concentric circles.  The larger the object dropped into the water, the larger the ripple.

My “ripple” began on Easter Sunday, 1941.  That was the day my mother decided to dedicate her life to Jesus Christ, and a few days later my dad followed with his public confession that he too wanted to make a commitment to follow Jesus.  Though he had spoken and written about his ‘experience’ (link here) in 1929, he had not actively followed the Lord; but beginning in April 1941, for the rest of their lives, my parents faithfully kept their commitments and passed their testimony on to their children (and anyone else who would listen).

The pebbles they cast into the pond of life caused a “ripple” that is still producing concentric circles with no obvious end in sight.  “Concentric circles share the same center or origin with one inside the other.  While they share the same origin, they do not necessarily have the same radius.”

Though the five children of my mother and father had different lives and were separated by distance, we lived in the ripple created by our parents’ origin, making our own ripples, ever expanding to our extended families.  We were all introduced to the God of our parents and in turn had to make our own personal decisions about commitment.  There are now great-great-grandchildren in the perimeter of the original ripple.  We all live in different radii and are at various levels of spiritual maturity, but we are composed of the sum of the many ripples which began in 1941.  So actually, the center/origin of the concentric circles that began for us became the God Mother served.

Who is waiting for you to begin a ripple that will embrace them in the quest for eternal life in Christ Jesus?  They probably are not aware that they are waiting, but you may be the holdup in their coming to know Jesus as personal Savior.  The ripple that Mother began has not only affected her family, but many of the teens and children she taught in Sunday school and youth meetings were pulled into her ripple creating ripples within ripples, within ripples, within ripples, etc.  Only eternity will reveal the extent of her “pebble ripple.”

Similarly, you can see the same progressive effect in our complex hearing organs.  I suppose I am more aware of that, being hearing impaired.  There is a ‘parable’ in our ears!  If the nerves in our complex hearing organ that receives vibrations which eventually make their way to the brain have died, there is no sound.  I recall being told while yet in elementary school that in the forest if a tree fell when no one was around, there is no sound.  There is no sound in space; it needs the complexity of all the hairs, bones, eardrum, nerves, etc. inside our head to produce sound.  The outward ‘ornament’ (ear) is like the pond which received the pebble.  The ‘ripple effect’ allows us to hear the sounds that surround us.  If any part of the hearing system is not working properly, it will affect how we perceive sounds we hear.  What we perceive may not be the true sound.  If the nerve is dead, for us there is no sound.

It is vitally important that we create ripples that those in our responsibility-realm can fit into and be safe.  If our lives are malfunctioning toward God, the ripple we produce and those in our circle will have flawed information and be misdirected.  We cannot force anyone, even those closest to us, to abide in our ripple; but we can give them a good “origin” to start from as they create their own concentric circles in our ripples.  We can keep our “spiritual ears” healthy so that the sounds we hear are Truth and are profitable to share with our circle.

You may think your pebble is too insignificant to make a ripple of a difference.  Wrong!  Try it.  Drop the smallest pebble you can find into a pond and watch it begin to create concentric circles.  God calls every person who has ever been born to live in His “ripple” and inherit eternal life.  Sometimes we may have to leave the ripple that we began in, and only God can break that circle.  If we fail to heed His efforts to rescue us, we can be swept away by an erring ripple.  When we have life in Christ, we have a new origin and become new creations and can make ripples in His circle that will bring our families and friends into a place of safety. 

Does your circle have God at its origin?  If not, He will pull you out of the tug of the dangerous ripple and place you in His, if you will let Him.  It’s all done by faith, faith in what Jesus did for us.  The ripple of faith will relocate you in a place of eternal security and give you opportunity to share your circle with others who are caught up in the force of an evil pull and need to be rescued.

Make your life an unending ripple for God.

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

~~Delores~~