Do you sometimes feel that your life isn't making any impact for God? I do! The human race now numbers more than 6 billion people, the majority of whom don't know Jesus. World problems are overwhelming. My praying, witnessing, and giving seem to be doing little to change our ungodly world.

Recently when I was tempted to sink into a mood of futility, I read something by Frederick Buechner that lifted my heart. Comparing the world to a great spider web, Buechner wrote, "If you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling. . . . As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference, or with hostility toward the people we meet, we too are setting the great spider web a-tremble. The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt. Our lives are linked. No man is an island."

Encouraged by Buechner's words, I returned to my seemingly small duties with new zeal. Who knows how the few souls we touch will touch others who in turn will touch still others! God uses us in our weakness and smallness to accomplish His far-reaching purposes (1 Cor. 1:26-31).  — Vernon C. Grounds