All it Takes is One

It wasn't the argument that caught my attention. It was one single sentence.

I was watching a round table discussion between a former organized crime figure and several law enforcement officers on YouTube. The conversation was intense, with accusations going back and forth about corruption, justice, and the abuse of power. I will provide the link below.

At one point, the officers were pushing back against the man's claims. They spoke in broad, absolute terms, insisting that certain things simply do not happen or could not happen the way he described them.

Then the former crime boss calmly interrupted with a simple observation.

"You can't speak in absolutes. The moment you say 'always,' 'never,' 'everyone,' or 'no one,' all it takes is one exception to prove you wrong."

I've been thinking about that ever since.

The older I get, the more I realize how much of our thinking is built on assumptions disguised as certainty. And the more I view the world through the lens of Organization Development—a perspective I've grown to love—the more I see how often our beliefs, cultures, and decisions are shaped by stories we've accepted without ever questioning them. We hear something enough times that it becomes "fact." We haven't personally seen something happen, so we assume it can't happen. We mistake our experience for reality.

But reality doesn't owe us repetition.

Sometimes one event is enough.

History isn't made because something happened a thousand times. History is usually remembered because something happened once. One time. What I'm saying is, that's all it takes.

The Wright brothers only needed one successful flight to change the future of transportation. Humanity only needed one trip to prove the world wasn't flat — even though, all they really had to really do was read "He sitteth upon the circle of the earth" — Isaiah 40:22. Science discoveries do not become true because they're repeated first; they're repeated because they were first proven once.

One moment changes everything.

Yet we so very quickly dismiss ideas because they are not common.

We say, "I've never seen that happen."

As if our personal experience is the measuring stick for all truth.

But there are billions of people on this planet and thousands of years of recorded history. My experience is a tiny fraction of reality. Yours is too. The fact that neither of us has witnessed something doesn't make it impossible.

It simply means we haven't witnessed it.

This idea has huge implications, not only for history or science, but for our faith.

One of the common arguments against Christianity is, "Jesus hasn't returned yet."

As though delay somehow disproves a promise.

But if history teaches us anything, it's that waiting doesn't invalidate truth.

Again, waiting does not invalidate truth.

The word of God teaches that God once judged the earth with a flood and then promised never to destroy the whole earth that way again. Someone born today could reasonably say, "I've never seen the entire world covered by water."

Of course they haven't.

The promise itself says they never will.

But that doesn't erase the event that happened once.

The same reasoning applies to prophecy of scripture. The return of Christ hasn't happened, so far, in my lifetime. It hasn't happened in yours. But that fact alone says nothing about whether it will happen tomorrow.

Time is not evidence against truth.

Sometimes it is simply the space between the promise and its fulfillment.

This principle reaches beyond, your thoughts, ideology, and religion.

How many opportunities have we ignored because we thought they could never happen?

How many people have stayed trapped because they believed no one could change?

How many inventions, businesses, relationships, or dreams died before they ever lived because someone declared them impossible?

Every extraordinary story begins as something that had never happened before.

Until it did.

Maybe that's why wisdom requires humility, or as I like to say, truth.

Instead of saying "never," perhaps we should say, "Not yet."

Instead of saying "impossible," perhaps we should say, "I haven't seen it."

Instead of saying "everyone," perhaps we should admit to, "Most."

Language matters because language shapes thought. And thought shapes belief, and belief is your destiny.

Ironically, one of the deepest philosophical truths I heard that day didn't come from a professor, a scientist, or a theologian. It came from a man whose past was filled with crime. Truth, wherever it is found, is still truth.

The conversation reminded me that truth is not measured by how many times something doth occur.

A possibility is not determined by popular opinion.

And reality is not confined to what we've experienced personally.

Sometimes one act of steadiness changes a family.

Sometimes one decision changes a life.

Sometimes one sacrifice changes the world.

Sometimes one promise changes eternity.

And sometimes...

all it takes is one.

CDLR

Link to video: https://youtu.be/EEd5cvHnhPQ?is=E3UNs0ieymE_8BWq