The moral of the story is simple, although one snowflake weighs virtually nothing, the weight of each one is very significant when added together. As Christians who are often out there trying to help people to Christ, we must keep reminding ourselves that it is precisely the little details through which great things can and usually do happen. For all we know, something we do or something we say could be for someone the final snowflake that breaks their branch of scepticism. Maybe each snowflake was an experience perceived with little value at the time, but experiences add up, and we must always act as though every small gesture or every piece of wisdom might be the defining element that brings about a positive change in someone’s life. And of course, even if it is not, it could be one more snowflake that brings their brand of scepticism closer to the drop – we might be laying a snowflake ready for someone else to add something better. 

 

One of the key principles regarding our striving to make a difference is the initial self-belief in our own abilities to impact our world. Differences in character should primarily be observed with the purposes of striving for better things, but we should not feel isolated from the qualities of great human beings either. All of the great people that God chose to do his work, from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David and Solomon, to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel and Habakkuk, right through to St Peter and St Paul - were all remarkable human beings, who did great things for God, but all were saddled with sin and grievous errors of judgement at certain times in their life. We should be encouraged by this and also inspired to go on and try to achieve great things. They were given very privileged positions in their work with God, but they too had difficult times, and that ought to encourage us greatly. 

 

We must start with impassioned enthusiasm, and pray that the requisite confidence grows in us. And just as eternity is perhaps more tangible when you are looking at the stars; less so when you are cooking dinner; more so when you are reading great poetry; less so when you are watching Newsnight, so too the vicissitudes of human affairs – those undulating feelings of being confident one day and meek the next - creep over any who take their eyes of His plan for them, or whose hunger for impact is always rooted in the world of the ‘doubtful’ and the ‘pessimistic’. 

 

If you pin your hopes on Christ you will see that this hope is something which will enrich every area of your life; you will see that concepts such as the ‘warrior within’ and the ‘courageous talisman’ really start to have some proper meaning, even, in one sense, some eternal meaning. There is a temptation to feel that you ‘are there’, that things will naturally take course. But if you recline and dwell on it things might never get going, and you might turn into one of those Christians to whom words such as ‘progression’ and ‘impact’ and ‘personal growth’ are anathema. If you consciously decide to relax and ‘let it all happen’ you might find nothing ever does. The reason is simple; God can love and forgive abundantly, but His gifts for impact cannot easily be reconciled to an object that is sitting back on stagnancy. In other words, unless a man is ready to make a concerted effort to live for Christ and make every effort to change his world, he will remain stuck behind a barrier which Christ always asked him to demolish, but never forced His way into doing. 

 

And just as it is true that only when we start to think of ourselves as ‘not humble enough’ have we really become humble, it is even more true to say, only when we realise that we shall never produce enough awe worthy of His glory shall we know that we are really in awe of Him – and only when we are truly in awe will we make steps to change the world. This goes a little bit further towards an improved self-understanding; for you will notice that the perception you have of yourself when you have let yourself down is much more lucid and much more accurate and realistic than the perception you have of yourself when you do good things. The first kind are the truest and most real of all our perceptions, for they are the ones that will start us off on the right road to self-understanding. 

 

I think that virtually all self-perception, if it is not attuned to a genuine desire for improvement, or gravitating towards the restitution of childlike curiosity, is quite neutral - by that I mean leading us nowhere. Do you remember when psychologists used to write about self-analysis and how they would say that too much of it will cause a man to be grossly unhappy? This is precisely the situation to which they were referring, though, of course, their reasons for advancement and actualisation were different to the Christian’s reasons. Stagnancy and inertia of any kind produce ill-effect when it comes to our confidence - and it is precisely our confidence I am talking about here. Of course we might every now and then by some accident, stroke of good fortune, or undeserved act of providence turn out to be the vital snowflake on the branch – but we have it in our hearts to see to it that our will goes as close as it is humanly possible to match Christ’s will for the restoration of the human race. 

 

We Christians are not like traffic wardens trying to nab as many as we can for brownie points. In fact, that is another one of those strange paradoxes of Christianity - we cannot win any extra favour with God for helping someone to Christ because there is nothing at all we can do to make God love us more – He already loves us as much as it is possible to love – and our trying is part of the loving. We can make very good use of our God-given abilities by seeing to it that every opportunity to impact in someone’s life is capitalised on. And in seizing our opportunities we must never forget two more vital things as we approach this new year; firstly, that we have a world of people out there in desperate need of the news that we have to bring; and secondly, that we must not underestimate the smaller details that might appear on first showing to be insignificant, for just as every snowflake plays some part in crashing down the branches of scepticism, so too the small details you think unimportant or trivial could be the very details that catalyse the changes that help someone to salvation. 

 

All the best for the New Year

 

God bless you all!

 

James Knight