Worth Remembering (Friday Devotional)

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

- Matthew 10:42

At dinner a few nights ago, Lindsey and I started talking about family vacations we’ve taken, and we were curious to see which ones Andrew remembered. After running through a few of our most recent trips, we asked if he remembered when we went to Maine in September 2018. He said yes, but given that he wasn’t yet 2 years old when we went there, we weren’t quite convinced. So we asked what he remembered about the trip.

He paused pensively. Then suddenly, his expression of concentration gave way to a big smile and he exclaimed, “I liked when we stacked butter together!”

I should explain. While driving across the state to get to Acadia National Park, we had stopped at a roadside diner. Unfortunately, the place was packed that day and Andrew was hungry, so we were looking for any distraction we could come up with to keep him happy until the food came. Lindsey, with the ingenuity unique to preschool teachers, grabbed all the rectangular butter packets next to the salt shakers and told Andrew we were going to stack them like blocks. It did the trick—he was perfectly happy until the food came.

And as we learned at dinner almost two years later, that moment of happiness was no small thing for Andrew. Because when we asked him for one memory of Maine, he didn’t mention fresh lobster or ocean views. His fondest memory was stacking butter packets.

You never know what people are going to remember. For all the time and planning that go into big events, sometimes it’s a conversation in the parking lot that lingers in people’s minds. All the advertising in the world is powerless compared to a friend’s anecdotal experience. When it comes to making a lasting impression, personal relationships are far more powerful than any strategy or initiative.

So followers of Jesus Christ have to understand that our most powerful acts of evangelism, service, and love are often not the moments we planned ahead of time. For the lonely widow, your offer to eat lunch with her may be a more powerful witness to Christ’s love than any Bible study you could teach. For the harried single mother, an offer to babysit for free is a better description of Jesus than any evangelistic tract you could put in her hand. As Jesus himself said, simply offering someone thirsty a cup of cold water can be a greater testament to your faith than you could imagine.

You never know what people are going to remember about your witness, so the difficult but necessary task is to bear witness to Christ with your whole life, not just planned moments. Even the briefest interactions and the most seemingly insignificant conversations can make an impact on someone. So may you make those little moments worth remembering.