Are you a catalyst? Do you change your surroundings or do they change you.
Let’s do a science experiment today. Take a pot, any size and boil some water in it. First take some sliced carrots and put them in the water, 11 minutes later, what happens – the carrots get soft. Next take same boiling water and put some eggs in there for 11 minutes. What happens – the eggs get hard. In both scenarios the surroundings changed the product.
Now take some boiling water and put some coffee grounds in for 11 minutes. Amazing what you find, the water is completely changed – taste, color, and smell. The product completely changed its surroundings! Sounds like a catalyst to me!
Webster’s Dictionary says, “Catalyst: something or someone that causes events to happen with itself being changed.”
Kathy Lee Clifford once talked about the lasting impact that her late husband and NFL Great Frank Gifford had left on people. She said, “Frank’s world got smaller, as his God got bigger!” She then went on to talk about a trip that she and her husband went on the Holy Land. They visited the spot where David defeated the giant Goliath. For Christmas that year, graduation, and birthdays – Frank gave people stones. A picture of faith that represented to Frank of making your mark, having purpose, and being whom God made you to be!
You can find that video here: (http://www.today.com/video/watch-kathie-lees-touching-tribute-to-husband-frank-gifford-506707523589)
Many of us are looking for the next place to leave our mark. To make a difference. To be the next greatest in the field that we find ourselves in. I want to challenge you to something a little more meaningful than money, position, sport, or title. Something deeper than all of that stuff that you cannot take with you when you die.
I had a mentor/coach tell me once, “Dan, you are going to the wrong thing – people will be mad at you. You will do the right thing, people will be mad at you. You will do nothing at all, people will be mad at you. So you should just go ahead and do the right thing after all!” You are going to leave a mark, a good one or a bad one. The important part is are you going to make your mark for yourself or for the Kingdom of Heaven!
Acts. 13:36 (NLT) says this, “…after David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died…”
We all end up in the same spot when it is all said and done, standing before God, facing the music as to how we “Made our Mark”. So, the question of the hour is will we live for us or will we live for the One who died for us? One you answer that question. I just know that I want to live for the One who died for me and saved me and changed me!
Don’t settle for letting life soften or harden you, but take “the will of God for your generation” – and change it!