BECAUSE IT MATTERS
Everyone wants to make a difference. But sometimes … we wonder.
Elmer Bendiner tells the incredible story of a B-17 bomber that flew a bombing mission over Germany in the latter days of World War II. The plane was hit several times by shells and flak, some of them direct hits to the fuel tank. Miraculously, the bomber didn’t explode into a million different pieces.
When they landed, eleven unexploded twenty-millimeter shells were discovered and had to be meticulously removed from the fuel tank. The shells were dismantled, and to the amazement of everyone, every shell was empty. Not a single one contained explosives of any kind.
Inside one of the shells was a handwritten note in Czech. It simply said, “This is all we can do for you now.” Apparently, a member of the Czech underground, working in a German munitions factory, had omitted the explosives in at least eleven of the twenty-millimeter shells on his assembly line.
No doubt that worker must have wondered often if what he had done made any difference at all to the outcome of the war.
It did.
He did.
Maybe you’ve felt similar emotions regarding your service for Christ and His Church. Let me assure you, every prayer makes a difference. Every word of encouragement, every act of service, every day of faithfulness, every minute of ministry, every expression of generosity, every sacrifice great or small, everything we do in the name of JESUS has the touch of eternity upon it and makes a difference.
But we won’t know the full impact of it until we get to Heaven, and that’s the way it should be. Our faithfulness to Christ and His Church should be based on one thing: our love for Him. Not what we get out of it or even what someone else gets out of it.
We serve because He served (Matthew 20:28) and follow His example because that’s who we are and what we do (Luke 17:10).
We do everything we can while we can, and do it with everything we’ve got because we understand we are “serving the Lord” (Colossians 4:23).
Knowing ... IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE!