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Three of my boys and I went hiking at the lake the other day. My oldest son had learned the art of rock skipping years earlier, when we lived in a house near a duck pond. Now I watched him teach my youngest.

The first lesson is how to pick the right rock. It has to feel flat and smooth on at least one side with just the right finger-grip around the edge. There’s a fit to it, and once you know how to skip a rock, well, you know instinctively if the rock is going to glide.

The next lesson is how to release it side-armed and parallel to the water. Your knees have to give a little, and you figure out the right angle from experience. You let the rock fly at just the right moment, and then you enjoy the satisfaction of the skip.

Often my youngest son believes he already knows what you are teaching him. He pretends to listen for about five seconds and then plows into the way he already planned to do it.

The oldest throws the rock, and it skips five, six, seven times across the surface, sometimes more.

Then the youngest takes his turn. Kersploosh!

It goes on like this for a while. Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. Kersploosh!

I appreciate this simple skill of skipping. It’s impressive how often my oldest son can make the rock fly. Each time it hits the surface, ripples flow through the water.

My youngest son ends up happy to just throw rocks in the water. He doesn’t care to make them dance like his brother does. He counts his success by the magnitude of the splash.

As I watch the rocks hurled into the water, I focus on the ripples. The small rocks that sail skillfully over the water create more ripples than the large ones dropped in randomly.

Hmm … There must be a life lesson here.

Are the noisy, flashy, brash lives the ones that create the most ripples? Or, could the life placed in the right hand and artfully released leave a more lasting impression?

Sometimes our culture tells us to be loud in order to gain respect. But volume doesn’t equal significance.

Instead, when we allow Jesus to make our hearts fit for the hand of God and we rest in submission to the work of the Holy Spirit, ripples ebb from our lives that will influence others. God always gives us the freedom to resist His teaching and  kersploosh! — or to trust Him and watch our lives gracefully bend the way He leads.

Ripples from a life well-lived – a life full of gentleness, kindness, and faithfulness – create a legacy worth leaving.

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“Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us.”

– 2 Corinthians 6:1 (MSG)

“By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.”

– Romans 5:1-2 (MSG)

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suzy-stjernstromSuzy Stjernstrom
Mid South Field Director

Inspirational

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