On an ordinary winter day in 1961, an MIT meteorologist named Edward Lorenz ran some routine experiments and found some unusual results. Lorenz discovered that seemingly tiny and insignificant changes in his data could produce huge differences in the final result. At first, Lorenz and other scientists in the field of chaos theory called this "the sensitive dependence on initial data." Fortunately, later on Lorenz used a simpler term—"the butterfly effect." In 1972, Lorenz presented a scientific paper entitled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?" According to Lorenz's theory, the butterfly's wing-flapping doesn't actually cause a tornado, but it can start a chain reaction leading to giant changes in world-wide weather patterns. In others words, even tiny, insignificant movements or actions can produce huge changes that affect millions of people.

The Bible often describes a similar "butterfly effect" for the spiritual life. According to Jesus, the spiritual butterfly effect occurs when we do small things—making a meal, visiting the sick, befriending the lonely, opening our home to a guest, praying with a friend—for "insignificant" people, which makes a huge difference in God's eyes. But according to Jesus, there's also a reverse butterfly effect: consistently failing to display small acts of kindness (i.e. living an unkind lifestyle) has a profound loss of opportunity in the spiritual realm.