“Large streams from little fountains flow; tall oaks from little acorns grow.”
English Proverb
It’s easy to look at successful people around us, the CEOs and celebrities, and think that we will never get there. Sometimes our dreams seem so big that we have trouble taking the first step down the path to getting there. Sometimes we don’t even know what the first step is. But CEOs didn’t start out as CEOs, and most celebrities worked hard for years before they made it big. It isn’t the big things that define our life: our huge successes or accomplishments. Generally speaking, it’s the little things. It’s the devil in the details that separate a great experience from an average experience.
Sometimes we think of little things as insignificant. Small things can get easily overlooked. They seem unimportant, like it won’t make much of a difference in the long run. Do I really need to take the extra step to take my grocery cart back to the cart corral? How important is it really if I toss that trash out of the window of my car as I’m driving down the road? What about putting my loose change into a jar and saving it for a rainy day? Can that really make a difference? Yes!
There’s a biblical principle at work here. If you’re faithful in the little things, you’ll be faithful in the big things. It’s the habits we form and the routines we develop that make us successful. Taking that cart back may not seem like much. After all, it takes a few more steps and a bit more time, but think about the people coming after you. No carts clogging up the parking spaces. No possibility for the wind to blow a rogue cart into their car. And for the workers? No running all over the parking lot in all kinds of weather to round up those carts you couldn’t take an additional few seconds to push into their proper place.
Most of us know the dangers of littering and the havoc it wrecks on our environment. If you’re my age, you remember the endless ad campaigns with slogans like: “Give a Hoot! Don’t Pollute!” Those ads were based on the idea that one less piece of trash could mean a huge difference in cost down the road. Simple things like recycling kept 87.2 million tons of garbage out of landfills. The amount has been on a steady incline since recycling became a big deal in the 1980s thanks to images like the trash barge. The small change of switching from Styrofoam containers saved 30,000 tons of waste in New York City alone. Just look at these stories (here, here, and here) on the possibilities with saving your spare change. According to this article, one man collected over $13,000 worth of pennies. That’s right! Pennies!
Small things add up quickly. The same is true for other things as well. Small things can make all the difference in our mental health. Little things like celebrating small victories, doing small acts of kindness, etc. can bring us great joy. Little things that separate one company from another can make a huge difference in customer satisfaction. It’s not really “go big or go home” when it comes to making an impact on the world around you.
The same is true in our spiritual lives. When we seek out excellence in the little things, God can use that to bring big blessings into our lives. When we show faithfulness in small things, God rewards us with the calling to do big things for Him. It’s amazing what we can do! George Muller cared for 10,024 orphans in his lifetime and never made a single request for financial support. How did he do it? He took the small step of praying for God’s provision and trusting that God would provide. The life of St. Therese of Lisieux is another example. She believed in doing “little things with great love,” and by doing these small acts she was awarded sainthood.
“If you can not do great things, do small things in a great way.”
Napoleon Hill
Sometimes as Christians we overlook the little things. We look at heroes of the faith like Dwight L. Moody and Billy Graham and think about how we will never do such awesome things. Dwight L. Moody came to faith because his Sunday School teacher took the time to tell him about God’s love for him. What if Edward Kimball had felt that telling his students about God’s love was too small a thing to worry about? What if he didn’t even teach Sunday School because it wasn’t a big enough job? The world would have been without the work of Dwight L. Moody. There would have been no crusades for Billy Graham if his friend Albert McMakin hadn’t persuaded him to attend revivals led by Mordecai Ham. Joyce Meyer tells the story of how she started out with a Bible study of 15 women in her home. Now her ministry reaches around the world.
Be faithful in the little things. Pray, read your Bible, volunteer, serve, answer God’s call. It might be something small like smiling at strangers. It might be answering a prompting of the Holy Spirit to take milk to a mother you know from the church. Small acts like this make all the difference. You don’t know when you will be the answer to prayer. One morning, I entered church with serious back pain. It was shooting down my leg and into my heel. I was uncomfortable during the entire service, but back pain wasn’t new to me so I ignored it and went about my business. After service, while waiting for my husband to finish chatting, a young woman from our youth approached and asked if she could pray for my back. I agreed. That young woman had not stepped out to pray for anyone before, but when my husband mentioned my back pain she felt led to seek me out. While she was praying, I experienced a warm tingling in the area where I had pain. By the time she had finished, the pain was gone. I let her know immediately how her obedience had blessed me. That immediate confirmation then blessed her.
You don’t know when you’ll be the answer to prayer. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve needed to hear something from the Lord, and a faithful brother or sister delivered that message to me. At the beginning of this foster care trial, I was fervently praying for vindication and restoration, but I felt as if my prayers weren’t getting through. I felt like God might not be listening. So as I walked into a service one morning, I silently prayed, “God, if I could just know you hear me, I would be able to hold on in faith a bit longer.” As I entered the darkened sanctuary during worship, I noticed a woman looking at me. She would turn away and sing a few words and then look at me again. Finally, she approached me. “I don’t normally do this,” she said. “But I just feel so strongly God is saying that I need to tell you that He has heard your prayers and that whatever you have been asking Him for, He has given to you.” She was very self conscious and apologetic, but that woman answered my prayers that morning, and I made sure she knew how big a blessing she was for her small act of obedience.
So be encouraged. Start small. Agree to meet with God for a few minutes every day. Ask Him during that time how you can bless Him and bless others. God is faithful. He will answer your prayer, and as you step out in obedience to the small things He gives you to do, you will begin to build a legacy of great accomplishments in the Kingdom of God.
“Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
John W. Gardner
“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception; it is a prevailing attitude.
Colin Powell
A Beautiful Mess 