Small Is Big
When I concluded my series on prayer on April 25th, we were six weeks into the COVID-19 lockdown and dreaming of the day when the world would return to normal.
But normal never came.
A month after I posted that column, we moved from the cold isolation of quarantine to the fires—literal and figurative—of upheaval. We stared at our screens as righteous anger morphed into unbridled rage and unity dissolved into enmity.
We watched our society come undone.
Dear God, what has become of us?
I am old enough to remember the tumult of the late 1960’s. Old enough to know how far our country has come in valuing people for the content of their hearts and minds, not the color of their skin.
Old enough to know we are striving for a goal we will never reach.
Because no one is perfect. You can topple statues and scrawl slogans on monuments in an attempt to repudiate the past, but you cannot erase the sin in your own heart.
Sin. Such a quaint, old-fashioned, church-y word. Some would say we have moved beyond such a concept, so great is our progress.
They would be wrong.
As long as people walk this planet, sin will exist. Racism, yes, but also hate of all kinds, greed, pride, envy, gluttony—the same impulses that drove ancient man drive us. Until they drive us to our knees.
Then, if we still possess a scintilla of self-awareness, we ask, ”Dear God, what has become of me?”
I trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior; I believe He paid the price for my sins. That means the eternal part of me—my soul—will not be separated from my Maker when I leave this earthly shell behind.
Still, I stumble. I do not murder. I do not steal. But sometimes I speak too quickly and listen half-heartedly and act willfully. I slip back into ugly old habits I’d rather not confess here.
But God knows them all. And the Holy Spirit nudges me when I’m drifting off course. The nudges become stronger if I ignore them, and occasionally it takes a hard kick to the gut to get my attention.
Early in the lockdown Younger Son and I decided that two statements—six words—could sum up every conversation we had had about the situation: “I don’t know,” and “We shall see.”
We are now deep in summer’s haze, and that observation still holds true. But while talking to a friend the other day I realized that I need to add one more three-word statement to the list. It is the only one that can carry us through troubled days.
“Let us pray.”
For me, prayer is where worship begins. It is the moment when I walk into the presence of Most Holy God as a beloved child, flawed though I am, and ask for wisdom. For strength. For less doubt. For more of Him.
It is the moment when Christ’s words “apart from me you can do nothing,” come to life. (John 15:5, NIV)
On my own, I am but a whisper in a thunderstorm. But in Christ I am complete. He empowers me to carry out His plans. And I have to remind myself that while those plans might be boggling in scope, they may also be as small as a smile or as transitory as a “Thank you.”
In God’s arithmetic, small can be big.
Each of us inhabits a world of our own. It consists of our family, our friends, our co-workers, the lady at Walmart and the UPS driver at the front door. I believe God calls us to share the joy of His abundant life with our circle, especially during these anxious times.
While we cannot do everything, we can do something.
And in God’s hands that’s enough.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 (NIV)
