The penny.....and us

According to superstition, pennies are supposed to bring luck. Recently, the opposite has been happening. How much effect can a penny have? Well, quite a lot. Pennies waste 120 hours every year and cost 1.5 cents to produce. By simply no longer minting pennies we could save $16 billion each year. The one-cent coin has a tremendous impact on our economy. Something that seems so insignificant, that we walk past or tread on or shove into sock drawers, actually has significance. 

I don't know what you're going through in your life right now, but I do know that sometimes it's very easy to feel insignificant. In those moments we feel like the penny: forgotten, thrown away, walked past, unnoticed. 

And it's painful. 

But you have a bigger impact and more significance than you know. Think about all the people that know you, all your family and extended family members, co-workers, friends, enemies and acquaintances. You have touched all of their lives in some way. Now I don't know if that's been positive or negative, significant or insignificant, but I do know that you are around enough people that adding up all those interactions would equal a pretty significant impact. So in some way, you are making a difference in your world. People do know you, and I'm willing to bet that you can think people who love you. Lives are changed because of you, your life has significance. 

No matter how small you seem, your impact is great. 

We can be reassured by that and have hope because of that. But our hope should not be founded in that. Because our significance goes far beyond our impact on society. We are important because we are loved by God. We may feel like a drop in the ocean, a penny on a street corner, insignificant and lost and hopeless. But God who is rich in mercy, who created us, sent His only Son to die for us. His love for us is more than the drops in the ocean. We are significant to Him, we are rescued by Him, we are loved by Him, we will never be forgotten by Him. Loneliness is painful, but we never have to experience it because we have a God who promises to never leave us or forsake us. 

Pennies right now are seen as small, but their impact is tremendous. You and I have an impact on people, even in the moments when we feel lost. So don't let yourself believe that you are forgotten or worthless. Don't convince yourself that you are insignificant. Even seemingly little things have an enormous impact. And you have been purchased with the precious blood of Christ. Jesus says that not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from God, and we are more valuable than many sparrows. We are noticed, cared for, and loved. We are important, valuable, and precious.