How often do you consider your impact in the world? Are you making an impact? Could you describe the impact you've had on the world since your birth? Since last week? Would you characterize it as positive or negative? Wide or narrow? Substantive or substandard? Have you done all that you can do? All that you should?
Allow me to offer a reprieve from these questions, which may be hitting a little too close to home for some. I'm certain that this isn't the first time you've considered these things, even if framed differently in your own mind. This is because as Westerners (particularly Millennials and Gen X) we are completely consumed by the idea of our impact on the world.
You may be surprised to hear that, but I invite you to consider that rather than this being evidence of the contrary, it instead suggests the completeness of the spell cast over our consciousnesses, such that impact is so ingrained in us now as to be second nature. However, this second nature could be no more unnatural, and I suggest that these fears and obsessions are not given to us by God; and if so, why do we persist in them? In other words, our obsession with our own impact in the world has become the water in which we swim, and our actions are entirely caught up with staying afloat, or the fear of drowning. I'd like to suggest that rather than going along with this flow, to continue the metaphor, that we re-frame our thinking, and simply get out of the water. I'd like for us to think for a short while not about our impact on the world, but about the consequences which our obsession with impact has upon us. To do so I'd like to look at how we got here, the shifts that have taken place in our thinking, and to offer a solution.
Jackie Robinson, the famously talented American baseball player who was also the first African American to join Major League Baseball, is credited with saying,
a life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.
Of course, Robinson would know a thing or two about lasting and substantive impact, given his worldwide renown, countless accolades, and the fact that he is and has been an inspiration to millions, even long after his death. Robinson represents what we might call the old model of impact, a conception that in order for ones life to have value it must first be remembered as having made a lasting change on a number of people. In this model, the best kind of impact is the widest or the deepest, meaning that it affects the most lives, or if it affects few lives that it has a drastic effect in those few, perhaps inspiring those few therefore to make deeper/wider impacts after you.
I call this model old, because it seems to have been the model for the majority of the 20th century, as evidenced in Robinson for example. In the old model, impact does not simply occur as a consequence of happenstance, and no one could assume that their lives would automatically have an impact. Instead, impact came as a consequence of hard work, determination, and careful attention to those around you. In other words, in the old model impact is achieved rather than assumed. Therefore, in the old model, those who do not make a substantive effort or display a robust character could never hope to achieve impact upon the world around them. For some of us this makes perfect sense: if you wanna do big things you have to work hard. However, in this model, the greatest sin is to die in obscurity, for the world to carry no remembrance of you outside your loved ones.
This desperation for being remembered as having made at least some impact is more correctly identified as a effort at eternal life by way of being remembered by others; we call this being "immortalized" for a reason, after all. However, Scripture has nothing whatsoever to say about ensuring that you are remembered as impactful, great, or for any other such efforts at all which bring glory to your own name. This is true even if you conceive of impact as primarily "impact for the Lord," "to advance the gospel," or "to reign in the coming kingdom" as some have said. In fact, as far as remembrance goes, Scripture is fairly clear on what it is that we should always have in remembrance, namely the words and actions of God on our behalf, not our own words and actions (Dt 6:6, 8:2; Isa 46:9; Acts 20:35; Ps 77:11, 143:5; Jn 14:26). So we see that Christians are not exempt from this cultural trap in which we find ourselves. For example, I remember while working at one church the staff was asked, during a team building exercise of sorts, to rank 4 categories which they most highly valued in their vocation (or, career+calling). Categories were derived from contemporary wisdom from Christian and other leadership books. The categories were Money, Relationships, Personal Development, and Impact. Without variance, everyone present ranked impact as the highest value marker in determining how they would go about their lives.
Here, before we move to the new model of impact, we must briefly discuss the comparison between ourselves and others which is inherent in any evaluation of ones impact. In the comparison between two lives, where one life is deemed more impactful than the other, a subtle equivalence occurs, wherein perceived impact is made to be synonymous with significance. This comparison often takes place subconsciously, and therefore occurs without any direct intention to make the comparison in the first place, often being noticed only once the comparison, and resulting verdict, has already been completed in our minds. When this false equivalency (impact=significance) occurs, the simultaneous final verdict inevitably strays into the realm of value, where a life's value is determined by the impact that it has created. In this way we have confused impact, significance, and therefore personal value.
As should be evident, this worldly arithmetic, which has free reign in Western minds, is a calculation of value which is entirely foreign to the mind of God, who conceives of all as having value based upon His image within them and the love He has set upon them as his special creatures (Gen 1:26; Ps 8:4; 2 Pt 3:9; Ja 3:9; 1 Jn 3:1). Though God sees that all things he creates are good, the distinction following his human creation is that they are "very good," instilling a peculiar dignity in all human life which exceeds any modern basis for value in persons. It is God's love upon all, and our equal standing as creatures before Him, which relegates all such comparisons between us as futile, and therefore which makes impact, no matter how large or small, a futile method of the valuation of a human life. Such chasing after value by the significance of ones impact, or fear of devaluation by lack of impact, is more like slavery than anything else.
In contrast to the old model of impact, where impact is achieved rather than assumed, is the new model of impact which seems to have gained prominence in the last 20 years. The new model of impact assumes that all lives without exception have impacts, that our smallest choices, actions, and opinions have drastic consequences sometimes unknowable until a later time. Here the illustration of the so called "butterfly effect" is apt, wherein even the smallest actions have a ripple effect which could finally result in massive change. Perhaps the 2004 movie The Butterfly Effect is demonstrative of public fascination with the idea of our smallest actions resulting in large impacts. Concurrent with the rise of the new model of impact is the rise of social media, which may account for the prevalence of concern for impact particularly among Millennials and Gen Z. For the first time in history, impact could be quantified in the numbers of views, likes, comments, shares, and response videos. Here, wideness of impact is confused for depth of impact. Even the smallest actions (a tweet, posting a link, posting a video) could result in thousands, even millions, of responses in others. Where the old model seemed insufficient, as the impact had to be subjectively measured, the new model finally offered an objective basis to measure ones impact on the world. Instead of coming to the end of ones life and wondering whether you had done enough great things, all you need do today is to look at your statistics page to view how people have interacted with your "content." We'll return to this below.
The new model is convenient in that whereas impact was once achieved through an entire lifetime of hard work, achievement, personal growth, and strength of character, now impact was just the things you were already doing anyway. Though concentrated effort was abandoned in this social subconscious trade, what was thought to be gained was a relief in the sense that the quantifiable impact of common actions could be relied upon to assure oneself that their life had meaning and value precisely because it had impact. For example, rather than making a felt impact on any single individual(s), you can simply give to a cause, march in a protest, or wear a pin/bracelet. However, this trade was more akin to robbing Peter to pay Paul as regards our conceptions of our own value relative to impact. Though the new model of impact offered instant gratification by attaching impact/significance to all of our actions, we opened the door to a sort of hyper legalism, wherein we desperately evaluate our actions and opinions relative to the massive impact we now assume it will have.
Where impact is assumed but is yet to be quantified as a positive or negative, the whole of our lives is spent in a personal audit of the supposed wider repercussions of our moment-to-moment actions, where everything has eternal consequences. "Do you recycle? Because not recycling means that you are not following God's creation mandate to take care of the world." "Did you read/pray/have a quiet time today? Because if you didn't you are neglecting your spiritual health." "Did you change your profile picture to the appropriate flag or color? Because if you don't you are committing violence by perpetuating (X) understanding." "Do you have a fossil fuel vehicle? Because the negative impacts of fossil fuels could end the entire world!" "Did you vote? Because if you don't vote for the right person, then our whole country is doomed!" "Did you read this book/buy this product? Because that means you hate (Y) people group, and are endangering their lives." "Have you had (Z) medical procedure? Because if you don't, you are threatening the lives of the elderly!" Feel free to supply your own more personal iterations, because I am absolutely convinced that you and I are surrounded by this understanding.
Note that this neuroticism of impact evaluation is present in all groups, so do not be tempted to align my understanding here as criticism of any one "side" or political view, for nothing of the sort if further from the truth. In fact, our obsession with "sides," and the idea that all our speech, action, opinions, and decisions must place us in one "camp" or another is itself derivative of the wider obsession that all our actions have colossal, inherent impact upon the world around us.
To carry the new model of impact to its logical conclusion (where the smallest of actions have the largest of impacts), some have now economized the process. What I mean is that some have figured out that the easiest way to have big impacts with the smallest of actions is actually to have a negative impact on the right people. In other words, wrong-thinkers need to be criticized, canceled, and crushed, often via keyboard warriors, but also by other forms of easy activism. Having assumed that the smallest actions have massive impacts, no transgression is forgivable any longer, no mistake is explainable, for the impact has already occurred, the "damage" is done. However, thanks to the new model of impact, all it takes for one to be among the enlightened good people is to boycott, to shame the wrong-thinker, and to send an email in an attempt to make them lose their job.
Thanks to the new model of impact, our conception of our own impact cuts both ways, the smallest step out of line is catastrophic and it is therefore incumbent upon others to use their small actions for negative impacts on those who step out of line, conning themselves into believing their negative impact is a substantive and positive impact for the world. As for the new model of impact, when the cuts go both ways it leaves everyone bloody. It is from this horrid hysteria of impact, and our insistence on measuring it in ourselves and others, that we need to be freed.
As I said before, this obsession with impact is something we only learn to constantly consider, it is not something naturally occurring within us. Children do not routinely consider their impact on the world, not until they have this idea impressed upon them, usually around graduation time. No, instead children live blissfully ignorant of their impact, being instead absorbed in the lives and loves of those around them. It is only when life circumstances and poor teachers introduce the threat of the lack of impact or negative impact that we learn to constantly consider whether we've made an impact good enough or big enough (Ecc 12:1).
Consciously, this occurs on our deathbeds, at graduation (whether ours or our children's), when considering our careers, and unfortunately, in the church pew. Subconsciously, we are tempted to allow impact to drive our whole existence. We ought not to be trained so. For what else is at root in this consideration of our impact than naked fear? Does anyone cite fear as some great virtue, or as an appropriate method by which to measure a life? Or isn't fear what God has warned us against more often than anything else in Scripture? No, Scripture does not set impact as our aspiration, but instead encourages us to "aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs" (1 Thess 4:11). We now turn to the Scriptural answer to the imprisonment of impact.
As I said in the introduction, we've considered how obsession with impact has in fact impacted us quite negatively, both in the old model and the new. Instead, Scripture's repeated command towards humility (Col 3:12; Phil 2:3) should prompt us toward what some have called a "blessed self-forgetfulness," where we forget our preoccupation with our own impact and instead allow our minds to stray in consideration of Christ's impact upon us. As often as we wander into the personal audit of comparing our impact with others, a restful repentance awaits us in taking ourselves a little less seriously and acknowledging that it is the Creator whose words and actions change the world, not our own. The greatest impact upon the world happened as a consequence of Christ's actions, not our own, as a result of the impact of nails, thorns, and a spear upon his body which drew the precious blood of our salvation. For those who believe this, we are those characterized as "in Christ" (Rm 8:1; Eph 2:6), and it is precisely our unity in Him which bestows upon us the greatest honor in the world, an honor which cannot be revoked (Rm 8:35-39).
All this is to say that the antidote to impact obsession, the key which releases us from imprisonment, is the freedom found only in faith in Christ. Your share in the body of Christ by faith (1 Cor 10:16) is participation in all his perfect works, and participation in his indestructible life (Heb 7:16). No honor, no blessing is withheld from you in Christ by faith, all things are already yours (Rm 8:32). No one need chase impact, not even "for the sake of the kingdom," for it is Christ who builds his own kingdom (Jn 18:36), we are less sovereign than we suppose, and God is not needy for our help. The "quiet lives" commanded in 1 Thess 4:11 come as a consequence of confidence in Christ, not ourselves. In Christ therefore you are free to be a bit actor, a small person of no consequence by worldly standards, for Christ has said that our true actions are unto him (Mt 6:6, 25:40; Rm 11:36).
This life of quiet and simple faith is much like the character "Sarah Smith" in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, who was wondrously lauded for a lifetime of faithful actions without any fanfare during her life. No one in all the world would have characterized Sarah's life as impactful, and yet her faithful actions were really unto the Lord, and so were regarded primarily as pleasing service to Him. Therefore let us be done with constant consideration of our impact, for this is against the pattern and commands of our God, and it only leads to misery, comparison, and hatred among us. Instead, as often as we stray, let simple faith be that which washes over us and relieves us of our supposed need to make an impact, convincing us instead of our full acceptance in Christ.
So what do we make of impact then? Do not suppose that I am here characterizing all impact as bad, or even that any desire to make an impact on a wide group is a sin in itself. God Himself leads some to make large impacts in history, while others to simply love their neighbors without acknowledgement; both are accounted faithful so long as Christ is their object of faith (Rm 10:11-13). Everything is dependent upon those motivations from which that desire springs. In contrast I submit that the best motivations are those which arise from a confidence that God has already set the fullest measure of His affection upon you in His Son, that it may never be increased (as if God could love the Son any more than He does already!) nor decreased, and certainly not from any impact that you make upon the world. Nor is the Father in any way needy for you to make impacts upon His world, He is perfectly able to ordain whatsoever comes to pass. So then it matters little whether one vessel is recognized by man and another only by her neighbors, for both are entitled to all things in Christ, just as in the parable of the late vineyard workers (Mt 20:1-16).
Therefore make no aspirations for deep or wide impacts, instead set yourself on Christ's perspective: "not my will, but Your will be done." You can begin by loving your neighbor, by serving your family, by caring for those you come across, by praying for your enemies, and by sharing the gospel with all, for these simple and small things are God's will for us, and we go unto them happily with the knowledge that all things belong to us already in Christ. Where satisfaction is full by faith in Christ, there is no need to equate satisfaction with impact, for our satisfaction comes from the impact of Another's actions. When satisfaction and value are at the absolute maximum in Christ, freedom from the imprisonment of impact is achieved, and we are free for joyful obedience to our Savior.
I feel as if I could write a whole book on this subject, there is so much to consider and so much research I'd like to add to it. However, I'd like for this post to at least start this conversation about impact, so that it rises to the level of our active consciousness, and so that I can hear from you about your experiences. Please don't hesitate to reach out, I'm interested to hear your story, and how you may have realized that your life has been haunted by the imprisonment of impact, or even how you might push back on this characterization.