News broke last week that Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, passed away at age 89. Not surprisingly, the internet erupted with tributes – both positive and negative – causing me to reflect on the ways Dobson affected my life personally.
On the surface, one wouldn’t think he had much impact. Although my family regularly listened to his radio program in my early childhood years, we drifted away from it as I entered middle school, as we began disagreeing with some of the ideas he advanced.
But looking beneath the surface tells a much different story. In the 1980s, Dobson hosted a man named Dr. Raymond Moore on his program, in which they talked about a strange, almost unknown concept called homeschooling. Through a variety of circumstances, my parents decided to try it, unknowingly becoming one of the pioneer families of the modern homeschool movement.
Other students from that early homeschool movement have sometimes bashed this alternative schooling method in recent years … but I am not one of them. In fact, I’ve long credited homeschooling for placing me in the public policy/writing career I’ve had for nearly two decades. Had I not been homeschooled, it’s highly unlikely I would have learned to think outside the box of conventional, cookie-cutter schooling. And had I not learned to think outside that box, I likely never would have had the chance to influence the thousands who have read my content over the years.
But Dobson’s indirect influence on my life goes beyond homeschooling. As I recently learned, Dobson’s organization played a direct role in founding the Family Research Council, which helped birth the Alabama Policy Institute, which in turn birthed 1819 News, my current employer, which is quickly becoming one of the most influential voices in Alabama.
My point in recounting this is not to give you my life history – in fact, personal background is something I usually try to avoid in my writing! My aim instead is to reflect on how single, small decisions and actions can impact far more people than we will ever realize in our time on earth.
Everyone wants to be an influencer today. Online social media has made that more possible than ever, so we regularly see people modeling clothes from Amazon, displaying their facial care routines, putting their families on display, and reviewing everything from restaurant food to other products, seeking to get likes and clicks in hopes of being launched into fame and fortune.
What we often forget, however, is that sometimes the biggest influence we leave on society often comes through the smallest things.
Consider Dobson again. Yes, he was a major influencer and did many great things, but for my family, it was just that one little broadcast out of hundreds – perhaps thousands – that set us on a trajectory that influenced my life, then career, then the lives of those my career has touched.
In the same way, a woman may clean her house, make her family meals, greet her husband when he gets home from work, and answer her children’s questions from dawn to dusk. These are all simple, little things … yet one of those little things may be the linchpin setting her child on a course which influences millions one day.
Likewise, a man may go to his workplace day after day, year after year, feeling his tasks are monotonous and menial. Yet his faithful service may be the thing which secretly keeps a company afloat or inspires a younger employee toward greater character, spurring him on to become a great businessman or leader in the community.
The same can be said of the small-town mayor, or the pastor of a little country church, or the teacher who labors to teach first-graders to read for 40 years.
“Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it,” political philosopher Russell Kirk once wrote, “they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.” In other words, it’s not the big, explosive, noticeable actions that matter in life. It’s the pursuance of truth, goodness, and beauty in the menial actions of our days that will matter in the long run.
And that should be an encouragement to each of us who want don’t leave this earth without making a lasting, positive difference in the lives of our fellow men. We don’t have to be out there, trying to reach masses and change the minds of others through social media posts or by speaking on great stages or getting into places of power. We just have to faithfully do the small things that God sets in front of us, trusting that He will be the one to bring the increase and influence as He chooses.
As the old hymn says, “Little is much when God is in it.”
Annie Holmquist is the culture and opinion editor for 1819 News. Her writing may be found at The Epoch Times, American Essence Magazine, and her Substack, Annie’s Attic.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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