A Butterfly Flapped Her Wings
Chaos theory says that every small change can lead to a significant, unpredictable, and unexpected outcome. So a butterfly that flaps its wings in Zimbabwe can cause a tornado in Tennessee. Not right away, of course, but the ripples from its tiny action can be felt around the world.
Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that when one object exerts a force on another, the second object exerts a force of equal strength in the opposite direction on the first object.
When you throw a pebble into a pond, the action of the pebble hitting the water creates ripples that spread outward. The bigger the pebble, the bigger the wave. When you change something in your life, it has the same effect.
The point is that everything has an impact on something else i.e. Newton’s third law. We do not always know what that impact will be, we just know it’s going to happen. Change is inevitable because there are always actions and reactions happening in our lives.
Competing reactions.
When ripples collide with other ripples they interfere with each other. That can create patterns where they combine and make larger waves or cancel each other out. Our lives are not independent even if that is our desire. It is constant waves coming from us and to us.
Things can get pretty complex with interactions bouncing off one another. It’s how we get triggered, trigger others and create new waves.
What I do can impact what you do and send off a wave in a whole new direction. Our ripples can also collaborate and make far greater changes than they could alone.
Life ripples, from others we know and some that we have never heard of (the butterfly in Zimbabwe), are continually lapping against our lives. Good, bad, big, small, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, health, government etc. are all in play.
Ripples hit us daily. Sometimes they seem to come out of nowhere and others we see headed our way and we have to brace for impact.
That means it is probably a good idea to see what pebbles are being dropped into us from the outside world as well as those we choose to plunk into our own hearts.
Everything has meaning, everything has potential impact.
Nothing is arbitrary or without some importance. Even the daily mundane impacts our nervous system, our motivation, and dreams. Sleeping, eating, daily self-care, or lack of it, will affect our mood, behavior and walk with God.
Our reactions to life are our ripples running into the other ripples hitting us from all sides.
You’ve probably guessed that this month our topic is how what we do or don’t do, what is done to us or isn’t, how we are intentional about our lives or laid back, all determine what impacts us and how. It all matters.
Have solid boundaries on what can be dropped into you.
Life changing ripples can come from seemingly insignificant interactions. Books. Movies. Music. Sermons. Nature. People. The Word. Old wounds and new.
We cause ripples in our lives by what we think and do, what we ingest and release, and who we are with. We don’t think about it much but every day we live in a very active pond.
It’s your life, your pond, you can control to some extent who has access to it. You have almost total control of what you bring into your life that has the potential to impact you in good and bad ways.
Be holy for I Am holy.
Recently the Lord impressed upon me that some movies I watched, while seemingly not a big deal, were creating ripples that would impact who I am. I immediately chose to remove them.
He also asked me to add in a deeper study of a particular book of the Bible. I’m on it.
What did God do? He removed those pebbles that disturbed my pond (sorry, but I’m going to stick with this metaphor the whole way through this letter) and added in one big one that would push out other ripples and overpower them.
I’ve heard many people say that they had to stop watching the news or remove themselves from social media or add in Christian music, stay away from certain people, change churches etc. to clean up and protect their hearts.
Awareness is the first step in regulating not only how the world impacts us but also how our daily habits and thinking and interactions do as well. Then we can drop in new pebbles or stop plunking in what is not advantageous. What if you were totally aware of the plunk, plunk that happens daily? Might that empower you to have a bit more control over your life?
When God points out what He would like us to control, it is for our good. Our obedience in even a small way can have an immediate, as well as an eternal impact. So can our disobedience.
We will start here.
