I will always treasure their visit. I was experiencing a very low point in my ministry, and to pile misery upon misery it was Christmas Day! I didn’t expect to see them. In fact, hadn’t seen them for months, but they turned up because ‘They wanted me to know that they’d missed me.’ For them, it was one small step of friendship, but for me it was one giant leap of encouragement.

Why are we tempted to think we have to do ‘big things’ to have a major impact on other people when experience teaches that the reverse is true? Small acts of kindness can, and regularly do have an enormous impact. Muhammud Ali’s story bears testimony to that. A stolen bike, a kindly comment from a policeman and the ‘Lord of the Ring’ was on his way.

Some years ago, while organising a youth camp, I invited the visiting speakers to describe their ‘Spiritual Heroes.’ Much to my surprise, most ignored the predictable ‘giant of the faith.’ Huw’s response was typical. He talked about ‘Aunty May’ and the inspiration she had been to him when she was in her nineties. ‘Aunty May,’ he told me, loved to encourage others and so she arranged for someone to call at her home every day to collect the two or three letters she had written. These were sent to missionaries serving overseas, Sunday school teachers working in her local church - anyone and everyone in fact she felt she could bless in spite of her growing frailty.

Jesus stressed the importance of small acts of kindness. It might only be a cup of water - or a visit - but such acts of compassion rank high on His scale of compassion. As Tom Sine rightly suggests: “It is still God’s policy to work through the embarrassingly insignificant to change his world and create his future. He has chosen to work through the foolishness of human instrumentality. And he wants to use your life and mine to make a difference in his world.’ (Tom Sine: The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, Marc Europe 1981).

Boris Kornfield was a Jewish doctor who was imprisoned, and finally murdered in one of Stalin’s camps in the 1950s. Before he died Kornfeld was placed in a cell with a Christian and as a result of his quiet, steadfast witness Kornfeld became a Christian too. On the night he was brutally bludgeoned to death, Kornfeld was introduced to a very sick man who was suffering from cancer. He spoke of his conversion and the patient also became a Christian. That patient was none other than the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn!

It often helps to step back and ‘take the long view,’ which is why I constantly remind myself of these encouraging words: ‘Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.’

Rob James is a Baptist Pastor broadcaster and writer who currently operates as a church and media consultant for the Evangelical Alliance Wales. He is available for preaching and teaching throughout Wales and can be contacted at [email protected]