When James Harrison was 14, he had lung surgery in Australia and needed many blood transfusions. He woke up in intensive care determined to give back. Encouraged by his father, who was a donor, he started giving blood in 1954 at age 18. His plasma turned out to contain a rare antibody called Anti-D, used to make medicine that protects unborn babies whose mothers’ blood might attack them. Harrison never missed a single appointment. He donated every two weeks until he retired in 2018 at age 81, giving 1,173 times in all. Lifeblood credits him with saving more than 2.4 million Australian babies. He liked to say that it does not hurt, and the life you save could be your own.
In 2022 NASA did something no one had done before. It crashed a spacecraft called DART into a small asteroid named Dimorphos on purpose, to see if people could change an asteroid’s path if one ever threatened Earth. The impact came on September 26. Before the test, NASA said success would mean changing the asteroid’s orbit by at least 73 seconds. When astronomers measured, the orbit had changed by 32 minutes, shrinking it from 11 hours 55 minutes to 11 hours 23 minutes. DART beat the goal by more than 25 times. One small push, aimed carefully, changed the course of something huge. Never underestimate a single faithful act aimed in the right direction. God can use it to turn a whole life around.
Malaria is caused by a tiny parasite spread by mosquitoes, and it has killed millions over the centuries. In the 1970s a Chinese scientist named Tu Youyou took an unusual approach. Instead of starting from scratch, she studied traditional herbal medicines. Her search led her to sweet wormwood, and from it she managed to extract a substance called artemisinin, which attacks the malaria parasite. Drugs based on artemisinin have helped millions of people survive and recover. In 2015 she shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Sometimes the answer we need is not something brand new. It has been there for a long time, waiting for someone humble enough to look. God’s Word is like that for a searching heart.
When Handel’s Messiah first played in London, it was not a hit. Some people thought a sacred work did not belong in a theater. Then the Foundling Hospital, a new home for abandoned children, needed help. Handel gave a benefit concert there in 1749, then in 1750 performed Messiah for the charity. It was so oversubscribed that wealthy supporters were turned away, and he had to repeat it two weeks later. From then on Messiah was performed every year for the children’s benefit, raising about 7,000 pounds. Handel even left a copy of the score to the hospital in his will. Some say without those orphans, Messiah might have faded. Generosity can give your gift a life you never imagined.
Dwight L. Moody came to Chicago selling shoes, dreaming of making a fortune of $100,000. But after he came to faith, it slowly dawned on him that his life should be spent helping people instead of piling up wealth. In 1858 he started a mission Sunday school in a Chicago slum. He drew poor immigrant children with candy and pony rides, and reached their parents through prayer meetings and English classes. By 1861 he had left business behind to focus on the work. Moody was convinced, “If you can really make a man believe you love him, you have won him.” People rarely care how much you know until they see how much you care.
