When we influence another person we never know what kind of ripple effect it will have.
I think of the people in my life who have had a profound impact. Many of them don’t even know how much they impacted me.
For example, I remember a missionary (Chris Smith) speaking at our church when I was a teenager. He prayed and prophesied over my afterwards. That prophecy has been a fall-back position for me ever since. When I’m going through a tough spot or I’m at low tide I’ll often think of those prophetic words that continue to encourage me more than a decade later. I’m sure he’s prayed and prophesied over thousands of people and wouldn’t even remember me. But his life influenced my life and hopefully my life is influencing others who are influencing others.
In 1858, Edward Kimball, a Sunday School teacher, led a shoe saleman named D.L. Moody to the Lord. D.L.Moody became an evangelist who, preaching in New England in 1879, awakened the evangelistic zeal of F.B. Meyer, a pastor, who later preached on a college campus and led J.Wilbur Chapman to the Lord. Mr. Chapman became involved in the YMCA ministry and asked Billy Sunday, a former baseball player, to preach. His preaching brought such a wave of revival in Charlotte, N.C. that local businessmen planned another revival that used Morticai Ham. During his meetings a young man named Billy Graham heard the gospel and gave his life to Jesus Christ and the ripples continue to expand in an ever-widening circle of influence! Edward Kimball describes the turning point of Moody’s life this way. “I determined to speak to Moody about Christ and about his soul and started down to Holton’s shoe store. When I was nearly there I began to wonder whether I ought to go in just then during business hours. I thought that possibly my call might embarrass the boy, and that when I went away the other clerks would ask who I was, and taunt him. I determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found Moody at the back part of the building wrapping up shoes. I went up to him at once, and putting my hand up to his shoulder, I made what I afterward felt was a very weak plea for Christ. I don’t know just what words I used, nor could Mr. Moody tell. I simply told him of Christ’s love for him and the love Christ wanted in return. That was all there was. It seemed the young man was just ready for the light that then broke upon him, and there, in the back of that store in Boston, he gave himself and his life to Christ.”
Who would have thought that Edward Kimball, who taught a little class of boys, could affect the eternal destiny of so many souls?