pennies

I do most of my greatest thinking on my morning runs.  I have no distractions, no real goals ever, and no real train of thought.  But I think. This is going to seem completely unrelated, but I promise it will make sense in a minute.  The last few days I've found several pennies on the ground outside.  They've been everywhere, and I have no idea why.  But now I look for them.  So, on my run this morning, I saw six.  Six pennies on the ground. I just passed them by. And what do I do on my runs? Think.  I went to a middle and high school retreat this weekend called Disciple Now.  I had an awesome opportunity to hang out with seven incredibly encouraging tenth and eleventh grade girls.  There were about 300 students total at the retreat.  I started thinking about how when we plan retreats like this, we automatically cater to the numbers, and assume there's going to be a huge revival of every student in the place.  I'm proud to say this weekend wasn't like that, and that those in charge knew the value of each student's salvation. It's awesome that we know the capabilities of the Holy Spirit, and that that is a possibility.  However, we forget sometimes to rejoice in the one student that gave his or her life to Christ.  It was worth all the time and effort to save a life.  We see parents and families of kids that have life threatening illnesses that spend their lives trying to raise and save money for treatment for their child.  To save a life.  It's like the pennies.

When I saw just one penny, I thought, "It's only one penny. It's not worth it." If it were a twenty dollar bill, however, I would've picked it up immediately, and probably let out a slight yelp of excitement, and told all my friends about how I saved this twenty dollar bill from the treacherous happenings of the world. When one student is saved, it's worth telling the world.  It's a life. If I would've picked up all the pennies on the ground I've seen this week on the ground, I would be half way to a quarter by now.  A quarter is a fourth of the way to a Mickey D's sweet tea.  One life can save another life.  That's two lives.  Two whole lives that have been saved.  Those two lives can save two more lives. We're half way to an encouraging small group.  Building the body of Christ isn't always about huge groups of people becoming believers at once.  Sometimes it's the slow building of a community.  The saving of our pennies.  But when we're talking eternity, that life is worth far more than just a cent.