Each Sunday morning when I arrive for worship, I know I can look behind the songbooks and find an announcement sheet. I know that it has been prepared by our secretaries and placed there with important information for our members. It’s a little thing, but we expect it will be there.
Each Sunday evening following our service, a group of little boys (4, 5, and 6 year olds) will go up and down every aisle and collect those leftover announcement sheets. No one has told them to do it, and it actually started as a game. Now it has become a ritual that saves our janitor a great deal of time.
Neither of these are great things; they are little things. They serve a specific purpose for the congregation, and no one really thinks about them unless they don’t get done.
There are other little things that take place. There are two ladies who regularly send cards of encouragement to members. There is a lady who prepares the communion trays each week and washes baptismal garments. Most people don’t know who does this.
A young couple with no family close by on which to rely faithfully bring an active toddler to worship. With another little one on the way, there appeared to be a need for someone to offer a helping hand. A young woman across the auditorium offered to take the toddler on Sunday evenings to give his mom and dad a time to truly be engaged in worship uninterrupted.
A lady recently retired and finding a lot of time on her hands, spent a Tuesday morning working in the benevolent room. She sorted clothes, visited with those in need, and offered assistance where she was needed. That was five or six years ago, and she still does that faithfully each week.
None of the things I have mentioned are great or considered important things. Each is a small service that is rarely recognized, but each serves as a reminder of how important little things can be.
From the Proverbs we read, “Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer; the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs; the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank; the lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces” (Proverbs 30:24-28 ESV).
The ants live in a community. They are regulated by certain distinct laws of nature. According to Proverbs 6, the ant has no ruler but prepares food in the summer and gathers food in harvest. They may be weak, but they are industrious.
The badgers live in the rocks (Psalm 104:180. They use those rocks for a refuge. They are difficult to capture, because they are said to have lookouts to watch for enemies while the rest are feeding. Their feebleness makes them search for a place where they can safely support one another.
The locusts are an army, traveling together as one. They don’t need someone to direct them because they strengthen one another.
The last of the small things is the lizard. It can climb walls. It is agile and smart enough to live wherever it chooses, even in kings’ palaces.
Paul said, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (First Corinthians 1:27).
Not everyone can be a minister, an elder, a deacon, a Bible school teacher, or a song leader. We consider those to take special talent; but for the Christian, it is all about using what talents we have.
It is about finding what you can do and then doing it. This is where wisdom lies. Wisdom lies in little things. It is not what you do; it is about doing something and giving God the glory.
In the words of Paul, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (First Corinthians 1:31).
Sandra Oliver