Trusting God...Big and Small

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5. This was the verse a group of ladies and I were focusing on during our weekly Bible study in the park just a few weeks ago. An awesome verse everyone should commit to memory.

One of my final questions to these godly women that day was, “If you honestly exercised full trust in the Lord, what might your life look like? What radical things might God call you to?” There was silence, then some hesitant answers of sharing Christ with others, correcting blasphemies, and getting serious about teaching their children about God. I repeated myself, sure they didn’t understand what I was getting at, “Think big! If you had enough faith, what might you do that would require full dependence on God?” More silence and a few responses similar to the first ones.

We ended in prayer and went our separate ways. I found myself frustrated, why didn’t they get it? Why couldn’t they trust God in BIG ways, just grab onto a dream and imagine how God could work everything out? I wanted answers like, “I would quit my job and enter full time ministry,” or “I would open my home up to all those in need and begin a ministry of hospitality,” or “I would pack my family up and head to another country as missionaries!” Yes, me and my big dreams, but those weren’t the answers I heard that day.

It wasn’t long before God began convicting me of a wrong attitude. I could feel the Spirit nudging at me. I then came across a quote in a book I was reading from Oswald Chambers:

“The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we will look for big things to do. ‘Jesus took a towel… and began to wash the disciples’ feet.’”

That was enough to bring tears to my eyes, God had my attention. I had assumed an attitude of thinking my “big works” would please God more than any small scale act I could do.

Yes, Jesus did many awesome signs and wonders while on earth and we love to read about them and point them out to others. We quickly forget all the seemingly little ways Jesus was fully obedient to his Father God. Along with washing the disciples’ feet (even Judas’) he: had compassion on the needy, spoke encouragement, told stories to demonstrate God’s goodness, taught and prayed for his friends, played with children, suffered, went to church (temple), endured insults, forgave his enemies, and ate with friends. All Jesus did was for the glory of God; he is our perfect example in the “large and small” of our lives.

I read on… “There are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is God’s way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God… The tiniest detail in which I obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I do my duty, not for duty’s sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement!” Oswald Chambers

Even our small acts of obedience, done out of trust in our Lord, are filled with the full power of God’s grace. A heart set on living in servitude to him is what God desires; obedience is obedience.

Lord, forgive me for making the all too common error of thinking you are more pleased with the world-changing evangelist than the community changing, obedient woman who shares Christ with others, will not tolerate your name used in vain, and is intent on training up her children in your word! These daily, routine acts of obedience train our hearts to trust him more and cause us to live out his written word.

It reminds of the interaction between the Lord and Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-13, “And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him…”

I want to be wherever God is leading me, whether that is in the earthquakes of the big callings in life or the low whispers of the small. I enCOURAGE you to trust in the Lord with all of your heart for every size task he puts before you.