For 18 months, residents of a village in Wales were baffled by the crashing of their internet every morning. Network staff repeatedly visited the village and found no fault with the network or hardware associated with the network. Cables were replaced, but the problem continued like clockwork every morning.
After carrying out several tests, engineers suspected that the problem could be caused by a single appliance emitting electrical interference. With sophisticated equipment, engineers worked to locate the “electrical noise.” At 7:00 one morning, the noise was discovered and traced to a particular home. It turns out that every morning at 7:00 AM the occupant of the home would turn on their old TV and that TV would in-turn knock out internet for the entire village. One person’s activity affected an entire village. But, when the person was informed of the problem, he was “mortified” and agreed to switch off his television and not use it again.
Your actions affect others. Sometimes, your actions affect others even when you don’t realize it. You probably haven’t knocked out internet for an entire village (though a teenager in our community had a wreck a few years ago and knocked out power for a few thousand residents), but you might have made someone’s day better with a smile or worse with a sharp word.
John 13 shares the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and modeling servant leadership before them. John 13:35 says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Do you notice what Jesus is teaching? Your actions matter. The way you treat your brothers and sisters in Christ affects the way the world views the church. The way you live impacts your ability to witness to others. The way you live may actually impact the decision someone else makes reading their relationship with the Lord.
Your actions matter. Choose today to lead others closer to Jesus by living like Jesus. Serve someone. Love someone. Encourage someone. Share the gospel.
Your actions matter. You can choose to lead someone closer to Christ or your actions can actually interfere with the faith-walk of another person.
One person’s TV knocked out everyone’s internet. That’s one way to view this story. Another way to view this story is to realize that one person’s actions restored everyone’s internet. One person changed their entire community. How might you change the world around you, one small decision at a time?
Photo by Diego González on Unsplash
