Small Matter Devotional

Devotional Why Small Things Are the Biggest of All

SMALL MATTERS Little things can (re)Make a life

Welcome to Small Matters!

We can’t all meet face-to-face. But the CAFO community across the world yet stands side-by-side, welcoming YOU to this gathering of hearts.

Together, we’ll consider little things. Yes, life holds many big decisions. But from leadership to parenting to ministry, it’s often small, daily choices that most form the people we become and the impact we leave behind.

No wonder. After all, we serve a Lord who spotlighted the power of mustard seeds and grains of salt. He honored the pennies of a widow and the lunchbox of a little boy.

So, like Him, let’s notice and celebrate what the world often overlooks ... finding, naming and living into those little things that can make all the difference.

Jedd Medefind President, Christian Alliance for Orphans

Why Small Things Are the Biggest of All Small, daily choices form us.

It is a Law of Nature, like gravity. Little actions, oft’-repeated, become something. They accumulate a weight, like snowflakes falling softly on a slope.

Individually, each flake is virtually weightless. But laid one upon another, they build to immense power. In time, the snowpack is enough to uproot trees and crush buildings if loosed down the mountainside.

Consider, for example, recent research on exercise. Most of us imagined that for exercise to count, it had to be long and intense. But an array of studies now shows otherwise. Even relatively short, light exercise – if a consistent part of our daily lives – makes an immense difference. One study found that just walking regularly 1.5 miles a day reduced measures of aging in elderly subjects by roughly four years!

This truth is visible in all areas of life, from our character and relationships to physical and emotional health.

We see it in how regular hand-washing can save more lives than the most costly medicines. How simple limit-setting by parents measurably grows attention and impulse control in children who’ve experienced adversity. How merely altering one’s posture boosts our ability to solve problems. How writing just a few sentences once a week on things we’re thankful for makes a person measurably happier and even reduces trips to the doctor.

Small, repeated choices carry untold power to shape us.

But mark this. The power of small choices comes not only from the natural law of accumulation that God wove into creation. There is a deeper law at work here as well. If the Bible is to be believed, at the very center of all things is One who takes what is small and makes it large. What is often overlooked and cast aside, God sees, God honors, and God multiplies.

God sees the little choices no one else observes. Whispered prayers. Quiet faithfulness. Think of Hagar, exploited and discarded by all who’d known her.

There in the desert, thirsty and alone with her dying son, she experiences the tender gaze of God as never before. The Maker of all things yet has His eyes on her. You are the God who sees, she breathes. (Genesis 16:13) God not only sees. He honors the unseen acts and hidden service no one else will celebrate. The faith of a Samaritan woman. The noble heart of the shepherd boy. Imagine the widow in the temple courts, face wrinkled and arms feeble,

shuffling across the smooth stones. What could she bring of any value? Two copper coins fall from her fingers into the chest, swallowed by the pile. But Jesus, he smiles. He points. That one woman, that small offering, he calls out and celebrates, as God does every small and faithful deed. (Luke 21:3-4) He sees and He honors. And then God multiplies the smallest act of love. Like loaves and fish. Like a mustard seed. Marvel at that boy, whose lunchbox held hardly enough for one meal, no more. He yielded it all, setting his small loaves and pair of fish before the Master. And, wonder of wonders, all ate. Every last soul in that mammoth crowd had their fill, with a dozen baskets of leftovers for the trip home, too. (John 6:1-13).

What does this mean to us? It is a gift beyond measure. Seeing the towering significance of our small, daily choices frees us. We don’t need to sweat the big stuff. When the world feels out of its mind and upside-down … when anxiety claws at our thoughts … when we feel utterly lost at life’s major crossroads … we can still walk in peace. We can set down the impossible burdens, the decisions beyond our mind’s capacity, the tasks too great for us to achieve alone.

As the shepherd-boy-turned-king expressed, “I don’t need to worry about things that are larger than me. I can calm and quiet my soul…” (Psalm 131, PAR).

In this, we can give ourselves with a light heart to the small things: quiet acts of service, unseen faithfulness, whispered prayers, simple love. We trust that these little choices, oft-repeated, become something. They gather weight. Day by day, they form us – into children who reflect the goodness and love of Jesus himself “with ever increasing glory.” (II Corinthians 3:18).

And even when others do not see – we know that God does see. He notices every cup of water given, every tender word spoken, every act of care or yielding. He honors these things, each and every one. And He can multiply their fruit, sometimes 100 times over, far beyond what we could ask or imagine.

May our souls rest in this truth ... then rise to the invitation of small matters.