"Whispers that change the world"

I recently read a book called "The Power of a Whisper" by Bill Hybels, who is the pastor of Willow Creek church in Chicago. If anyone is unfamiliar with him, the church he pastors has an average attendance of 24,000 on Sunday. I never really took any notice of him, there a plenty of large churches in the United States and I have never been one to love the larger churches atmosphere, I feel as though its too easy to get lost in the crowd. Perhaps that is one reason why I went to a smaller college. Anyways, one of the chapters in the book he wrote is called "Whispers that change the World". Before I get too far into this, I would just like to say that I would recommend this book to anyone who may be struggling with hearing God, obviously this is written from a Christian perspective and has many Biblical principals intertwined. Also, this is very much like a biography of his life, so if any of you want to know more about him, I would suggest picking up a copy.

Over the past couple months I have been struggling with what it means to hear "God's voice". I think that my next blog post may be about that very topic, but for now I want to talk about the phrase "changing the world". We hear this phrase all the time, whether it be from a friend, on TV, in a movie, in a history textbook or simply in our minds, the thought of changing the world has come up in that crazy head of yours at some point in your life. The problem for me is not so much the phrase itself, but what those words imply. What do you think of when I ask: "who changed the world?". Now, what do you think of when I say, "go change the world". My first thought is: "Where do I start?" or "I'm so unqualified" or "This world is so crazy, how am I going to make a difference?". As soon as you use the words "changing the world" you automatically exclude people from the conversation, even if you don't mean to. I certainly thought I was excluded from changing any part of this world. Bill Hybels took his chapter on changing the world in a completely different direction than I thought he would and if you want to know what he talked about then you have to read the book. But, my beef is with the title because of what it implies.

Over the last couple years my life has been radically trasformed. Not in the sense that I am a completely different person, I still have the same mannerisms, corks, quiet nature and weird habbits, but the inside of me has changed, the stuff you can't see. I am living for a different purpose, I have joy and life that I didn't have before and if you were able to talk to me about my passions two years ago and then now, you would see something new, except for football and the Redskins;) I think I am a personal example of what it looks like to have the world change. You see, I have learned that changing the world isn't about fixing all of our problems, or creating equality, or balancing a budget, or finding a way to end world hunger, or to bring peace to every country on earth. Changing the world is about changing someone in your life for the better or to put it another way, allowing God to use you to alter someone in your life. When someone changes, congratulations! YOU just changed the world. Because they are part of this world! Aren't they? If you look at the life of Jesus, who I would argue changed the world and many historians would agree with me, it brings up a question: what did he really do? He didn't create a physical empire, he didn't change the laws, or the tax code, he didn't go to war and win a lot of battles, he didn't become king or even pope. If you look at the stories of Jesus, he hung out with 12 of his closest friends and was with the poor a lot and he changed the world, because he changed the individual, he SAW the individual for who they were. My encouragement to you is: don't think that you can't change the world, YOU are a part of this world and so are the people around you. If you say today, "God allow me to pour into one person so they become a disciple of you" and then follow through, you will change the world and they will help you.