SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT
Text: John 3:1-16
Were so programmed to think BIG that many times we miss the power of SMALL! The powerful third chapter of the Gospel of John is the story of a conversation Jesus has with ONE man. Turn to the very next chapter the great truth Jesus discusses with ONE woman at a well in Samaria. When will we ever learn? The God Who created the vastness and intricacies of the universe is interested in the ONE, the SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT. However, the insignificant to us is not insignificant to God!
Have you ever felt like giving up? Have you ever wondered, even in what you try to do for God, whether it is doing any good? Let God be the judge of that!
I remember reading about a little girl named Annie who in 1876 was ten years of age. She was put into a poor house for children... called the Tewkesbury Alms House in Massachusetts . Her mother had died and her father had deserted her. Her aunt and uncle found her too difficult to handle. She had a bad disposition, a violent temper...stemming in part from eyes afflicted with painful trachoma. She had been put in the poorhouse because no one wanted her. She was such a wild one that at times she had to be tied down.
But there was another inmate named Maggie who cared for Annie. Maggie talked to her, fed her, even though Annie would throw her food on the floor, cursing and rebelling with every ounce of her being. But Maggie was a Christian and out of her convictions she was determined to love this dirty, unkempt, spiteful, unloving little girl. It wasn't easy, but slowly it got through to Annie that she was not the only who was suffering. Maggie also had been abandoned. And gradually Annie began to respond.
Maggie told her about a school for the blind, and Annie began to beg to be sent there. Finally, consent was given, and she went to the Perkins Institute. After a series of operations, her sight was partially restored. She was able to finish her schooling and graduate at age twenty. Having been blind so long, she told the director of Perkins that she wanted to work with blind and difficult children. They found a little girl seven years old in Alabama who was blind and deaf from the age of two. So, Annie Sullivan went to Tuscumbia, Alabama, to unlock the door of Helen Keller's dark prison and to set her free.
One human being, in the name of Christ, helping another human being! That's how God's kingdom comes, through small acts of kindness! Be looking for your opportunity to be used by God in this way today...even the SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT!
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