MY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY # 721

MY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY 721

Gal. 6:9 “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up”

In life, it’s easy to look past the small things as insignificant. But in the Christian life, those small things make all the difference. In the Gospels, Jesus is attentive to those who were considered “small” in society, from the sick, whether with physical ailment or sin, to the little children. God cares about the things we often overlook.

This principle is important when thinking about Christian obedience. We can’t be obedient in the greater things if we spend our lives dismissing what we think are trivial aspects of faithfulness to God. Usually, these are the kinds of things no one else notices.

The Pharisees looked obedient to everyone around them, but they lacked integrity. Devotion to God on the big stage without devotion to God in the private is often just an illusion. It’s in the daily grind that our love is tested and it’s there that it is cultivated as well.

I once read a story of an Indian man that use to get up early every morning for 40 years and go out and plant tree seeds on a barren piece of land … eventually he had a forest of beautiful trees.

Sometimes as a Christian, we find ourselves looking for a great advance in our spiritual life … something like a brand new “born again” experience. It’s easy to forget that the real growth does not typically happen overnight, but over a life spent getting up early and planting spiritual seeds.

Good and evil both increase at complex rate. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the launching pad from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently small indulgence in desire or anger today is the springboard from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

The principle goes both ways. Minor obedience leads to something beautiful, but “small” compromises give place to our spiritual enemy, the devil. While others may not see them, in time they become Satan’s chief base of operations, the place from where he launches greater assaults on our faith and undermines our integrity.

Before we think about the big things we want to accomplish for God, it will be good to ask whether we are tending to the small acts with which God is most concerned. True growth requires steady planting and watering. The small seeds of faithfulness to God, which no one sees today, grow into fruit trees that may nourish many people long after we are gone.

So here is some encouragement. Do not do something great for God … do something small. Be committed to faithfully following Jesus in the little things that will prove to be significant in the end … The greater things will come as we grow faithful by being obedient in the small.

This may not produce the kind of Christian experience many of us have hoped for. The pleasure we get from small acts of faithfulness is rooted in the hope that God will in the end accomplish what we never could.