Where Are The Difference Makers?

5-28-2020

By Lisa Luke Easterling

As a young child, you probably believed you could make a difference in the world. So did I. And then something happened. I can’t pinpoint when, and I can’t even quite word what happened, but somewhere along the line I stopped believing I could make a big enough splash to make a difference. I stopped believing I could make a ripple at all.

I held a concert once on the roof of the giant doghouse our Shepherd-Collie Patsy called home. I got the idea one day when I climbed up on the roof so I could entertain my neighborhood friends. I was so thrilled with the response that day, I thought up the grand scheme to hold a major concert, singing all of my favorite songs and inspiring every person in our trailer park with my heart put to song.

I spent a full week riding my bike around the neighborhood passing out hand-written flyers announcing the big event, not sticking around long enough to gauge enthusiasm but rushing on to the next trailer. The big day finally came and I set myself up on my elevated stage and waited. No one came. So with Patsy as my only audience, I sang at the top of my lungs to my audience of one.

Somehow as I grew older and life happened, I left behind that dauntless drive and unsinkable belief that I could impact those around me just by using the gifts and passions God knit uniquely into me. My “You’re going to love this!” became “Who am I to think I can impact anyone?”

Sadly, I think this happens far too often. We wake up one day in our mid-fifties wondering if we have anything to offer anyone, much less the big wide world. We accept the notion that world-changing is something other people do—people much more savvy or talented or ambitious than we are. And just like that, we give up.

I wonder what would happen if we could somehow remember what it was like to be young and fearless and brimming with belief in the promise that God wants to use us—not because we are perfect, but because we are willing. I wonder what might happen if all of us who have stopped seeing ourselves as world-changers caught a glimpse of what it might be like if we sang at the top of our lungs, or took that class, or accepted that speaking engagement, or wrote that book, or faced that fear. Even if only for an audience of One. I wonder if it might make a difference in us.

I wonder what a difference it would make in the world.