No One Too Small to Make a Difference
by Gilly Mathiesen
The following African proverb is humorous but communicates succinctly a very important point - “If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven't spent the night with a mosquito.”
In the day to day run of the mill, we may feel we are not making a difference, and yet, just one sentence of faith can bring about a lot of change.
The story of Naaman is an interesting one. He is the commander of the Aramean army, but has contracted leprosy. A young girl from Israel is taken captive and becomes a servant to Naaman’s wife. She probably can’t see what a difference she can make, being far from home, in a foreign land, and most likely sold as a servant by the raiders who took her. She did not have the most ideal of circumstances, yet she did not lose her faith.
At the right moment, her one sentence of faith ultimately changed Naaman’s world, not just physically but also spiritually. What is interesting to note is that the servant girl only spoke to Naaman’s wife, who then communicated what was said to Naaman. Naaman then communicated what the servant girl said to the King of Aram. Her one sentence had a ripple effect.
The king gives Naaman permission to go to Israel to be healed, all based on the servant girl’s one sentence of faith. We are not even told her name, but we can glean from the story, that after Naaman’s trip to Israel, the servant girl no longer was the only believer in Naaman’s household, as Naaman comes to faith in the Lord while in Israel.
This would almost certainly have impacted Naaman’s household spiritually, with all members most likely becoming believers in the Lord. And the restoration of Naaman’s health meant that he was no longer having to keep a physical distance from family and friends. Many lives were impacted because of one girl’s simple sentence spoken with faith.
Jesus said in Matthew 17:20, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain ´Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you”. The servant girl in this story had a mustard seed of faith, and that is all that is needed according to scripture.
May you be encouraged today to speak out, knowing that just a simple statement of faith can cause a ripple effect, which may not just change one person’s world, but many.
Gilly Mathiesen Gilly has a heart to see broken lives healed. She got involved in Christian ministry at a young age, working as a missionary for some years, as well as teaching at a Christian school. She has been involved with Ellel Ministries for the past 10 years and trained and worked on the team in Northern Ireland before moving to Denmark in 2016. She and her husband Steen have been pioneering an Ellel work there since early 2018. They long to see people healed and set free to be all that God has designed them to be.
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