We can be in our day what the heroes of faith were in their day,
but remember at the time they didn’t know they were heroes.
-A.W. Tozer
All these people were still living by faith when they died.
They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,
admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
Hebrews 11:13 NIV
Hebrews chapter 11 is a familiar text that outlines the “heroes of faith,” part of a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) that cheers us on. I’m sure it’s beyond my understanding the impact these people had and are still having on generations! Many of those heroes, like Moses and Abraham are part of the greatest stories of the Bible. Others, like Rahab and Enoch, we know less about, but their impact was still worth noting, and they clearly made choices that we can model. Enoch “pleased God” and never faced death, but was translated to God! Rahab, though a prostitute, chose to protect God’s spies and she is listed in the lineage of Jesus! Countless unnamed others throughout history have been found like Hebrews 11:13 states, “still living by faith when they died,” not seeing the promises they held on to reach fruition, but their impact goes on and on.
Imagine you throw a rock into a still pond. When the rock hits the water, it creates ripples – little waves that spread out in circles from where the rock landed. One small action can cause more and more effects to spread out, just like ripples.
…despite their small size, ripples can have tangible impacts on the physical environment of water bodies, influencing everything from sediment transport to light interaction. Furthermore, the concept of the “ripple effect” serves as a powerful metaphor for understanding the far-reaching consequences of actions in social and environmental contexts.
Then, consider the everyday choices of these heroes, named, unnamed, and all the way down to “regular” folks like you and me. Can simply doing “the next right thing,” as unexciting, unnotable as it may seem, create a significant ripple that we may never see with our own eyes? ABSOLUTELY! Do you think Noah had to wake up each morning and choose to keep doing the right thing? Surely he did! Do you think Enoch’s “pleasing God” was always as exciting as getting called straight off the earth to God himself? I greatly doubt it.
The House of David series on Amazon Prime does an interesting job of creating a fictional (but possible) idea of how King David’s mother may have impacted his life. The prophet Samuel has a strong role in the series as well. When David is anointed by Samuel, when he kills Goliath, and later on, as we know, he becomes a mighty king and a “man after God’s heart,” surely all the “ripples” of those before him contributed to his greatness and to God’s plan! Someone instilled a love for God in David, a love for and talent in music, a godly courage… Think even about Samuel… the ripple effect from his mother, Hannah, that of his mentor, Eli, and how the ripple spreads on and on! In I Samuel 1, Hannah chose to give her long awaited son to the Lord. Eli made the choice to raise Samuel. When Samuel first heard the Lord speak to him, he was in the house of God, near the ark, in the presence of God, and being a help to his mentor. Samuel was choosing to do the right thing. Even the prostitute Rahab and her ripples can be traced down to David and all the way to Christ.
Don’t fret, children of God! Sometimes we don’t see it, but we can keep doing the next right thing and trust God with the ripples.
David kills Goliath
Ruth
Rahab
Hannah
Samuel
David’s mother
Devotional by Heather Cornett
