The Butterfly Effect by Larry D. Wright

In a remote part of the Amazon jungle, a butterfly alights upon a tree limb. The butterfly rests there for a moment, and then flutters its wings. A million light-years across the galaxy, the moon of an unknown planet circling a star has its orbit ever so slightly affected. No instruments presently known could measure the perturbation, but scientists tell us it happens. It is called "the Butterfly Effect".

This strange effect promotes the idea that in a chaotic system, a very small change to that system applied at a certain point in time makes the future change in a very dramatic way. Something as small as a butterfly flapping its wings now might affect the weather system on a global scale six months in the future.

This concept is a documented and accepted fact in the scientific community. It is the result of over a century of disciplined research by some of the world's leading scientific minds. It is the scientist’s way of assuring us that that the universe may appear to be in chaos but in reality it is one system, one entity, one cosmos. Personally, in a world that appears to be governed by chaos, it is good to know that there exists a sensitive dependence, a cause and effect motion, even if I do not understand its dynamics.

Those of us who are Christians have no difficulty in accepting the reality of a universe that is sensitive and dependent upon itself because we believe the universe has one Creator.  Let’s take this "Butterfly Effect" a step further.

If a moon a million light-years away can feel the flutter of butterfly wings, just think of the impact your prayers can have today, tomorrow and throughout eternity! The early church assembled, "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly" (Acts 4:31).  The prayers of those believers made an impact on their city and so should ours. Even today, the great prayer of Jesus found in John 17 continues to impact every person born into His kingdom. Consider this.

A great many years ago a poor woman in England was being pressed by a store-keeper to pay an account which she knew she had already settled. He demanded that she produce a receipt. Quite certain that she had received one, she hunted and hunted, but was unable to find it. Desperately she searched through the piles of papers and letters that had collected over the years, but to no avail. The receipt was not to be found anywhere.

The day arrived when the store-keeper would wait no longer. He came to her house demanding in anger for the immediate payment or he would have her cast into a debtor’s prison. In that moment of distress she turned her heart to the Lord. Hopeless and helpless she groaned, "Lord, You alone are my Helper!" She actually did not know the exact and appropriate words to express the deepest agony of her spirit. All she knew was that she was the child of a heavenly Father who listens to His children. The Psalmist describes this process as "deep calling unto deep" (Psalm 42:7). Paul defines it as the spirit of sonship causing a child to cry out, "Abba, Father". The result being, "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:26).

In that very moment a butterfly flew into the room through an open window. Her little boy, eager to catch the majestic creature, ran after it. The frightened insect flew over to the wall and dropped down behind a trunk. In his eagerness to apprehend it, the boy pushed aside the trunk.

There it was! Behind the trunk, on the floor, lay the missing receipt! The eye of gratitude fixed for a moment on the answer to her prayer and the hand of faith grasped it tightly. Excitedly the woman rushed to the store-keeper revealing her new found piece of evidence. He promptly stormed away in protest grumbling something about his loss. The note in his own handwriting proved that indeed, the debt had been paid. (1)

The Butterfly Effect! A saint prayed and Nature responded with a butterfly. Really, a heavenly Father who is sensitive to the slightest touch of His child, the Soverign who controls the power of nature, directed a butterfly to answer the cry of a saint in distress. As missionary Jim Elliot, slain by the Auca Indians in the 1950's, once said, "God is still on His throne and man is still on his footstool. There's only a knee's distance in between."

And when we pray, a million light-years across the galaxy, the Father’s heart is moved and the future is changed in a very drastic way. It is called "The Prayer Effect".