Do Small Things For God
We all want to do “great” things for God. To preach to hundreds. To give a great sum of money to a cause. To lead a lot of people to the Lord.
And while we should have a spiritual zeal for getting out of our comfort zones. I wonder if in our desire to “do big things” for God, we miss the more normal “small things” we actually are able to do.
What if the small things are the big things?
What if that small text of encouragement, that prayer lifted up in the night, that $20 in the offering plate given with a pure heart, the saying no to sin and yes to obedience when no one sees, the working to be more patient with your spouse, the faithful reading of the Word… what if those are the “big things” for God?
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much” - Luke 16:10.
Everyone wants to do big things for God, but most of life is small things. Normal things. Mundane things. Ordinary things. Was Jesus’ life all “big things”? Certainly, there were a few, but it seems like a lot of his life was pure faithfulness in the small.
Dinners with sinners and skeptics. Stopping to talk to people amidst a busy/hectic schedule. Quiet mornings alone with God on the lake. Before His public ministry, he was a carpenter. (Mark 6:3) Lots of mornings, wiping sleep from His eyes, he probably walked to the shop and began quietly making things. And who knows of the untold small conversations that changed people’s lives.
The encouragements. The challenges. The teachings.
Learn from Jesus. Yes, when the rare big things come, be faithful. But most of us will have our lives marked by how we do the small things we encounter every day. Even those of us who do “big things” will not be remembered for the big things, but for the small.
Your life is an accumulation of small things. And your calling is to a ministry of small things.
Working to do the small things well, remembering that those are the big things,
Josh.
*This article was a reflection on my reading of The Ministry of Small Things, which you can find here.