One is NOT the loneliest number

Lately I’ve been thinking about being only one person.  What can one person do, accomplish, achieve, or change?  When examining your actions from your point of view, it seems fruitless and overwhelming to work, fix, spend, or give.  But what if you use God’s point of view?

God is not limited by time, distance or space.  God can use one person to change, accomplish or achieve a lot.  God has a way of multiplying a Christian’s actions -  one dollar becomes a thousand dollars , one hour becomes a 100 hours.  We tend to limit God to a 2 dimensional-like framework when instead God operates in a 3D-like, present and future frame.  Let me provide a couple of examples of God multiplying one’s actions.

In Riga Talsi, Latvia, one woman prayed for God to provide schooling for her developmentally challenged daughter.  God gave the woman a vision for a Christian school in a non-Christian country.  Fifteen years later, the school is providing a strong Christian witness to the community.  The school provides a Christian based education to Latvian children.  School graduates have developed a mission heart and are out in the local and world mission fields.  The school facilities are one of the few accessible by handicapped people and the facilities are used frequently by this group.  The students and faculty minister to local orphans who are basically ignored by the Latvian government.  The orphans have a loving, caring environment to find God loves them.
 
One woman’s pray.  One woman creating a Christian school.  One woman affecting the world, one student at a time.  One woman changing a city, one family at a time.  One woman showing God’s love, one orphan at a time.

Another example is a very quiet, confident young woman with a heart for missions who listens to God.  She spends college semester breaks and summer breaks traveling, with a ministry team, to places that don’t have running water, electricity, television, Wiis, or, God forbid, a Wal-Mart.  She is bringing the Gospel to one country, one person at a time.  She desires to be in the remote places of the world bringing God’s message to lonely, hurting people.  She goes to places the world considers unsafe, unclean, and undesirable.  Recently she spent, what sounded like, more time traveling to a small island country in the Indian Ocean than ministering to people.  She was fine with the situation.

One college age woman with a mission heart.  One woman willing to spend more time traveling than ministering.  One woman willing to not have creature comforts.  One woman desiring to minister and serve in places other than the United States.

You may not have the calling to start a Christian school or travel to remote geographic places but God can use you to make a difference.  Do you have a job and tithe on your salary?  Do you speak kindly to the Wal-Mart checker having a hectic day?  Do you publicly pray before eating?  Do engage in conversation with the server at Red Lobster?

God uses small, single actions to accomplish great things.  We limit our potential to affect change by thinking we are only one person.  God has the ability to multiple one person’s action into a great work.  I think Three Dog Night was incorrect with the song title “One is the loneliest number”.

Writer's Note: The Latvian city was incorrectly identified due to a misbehaving neuron.  The neuron has been fired.