Your Attitude To Small Things

Every little thing has the potential to grow into something big only if you know how to care for it. It depends on your organizational skills and ability to pay attention to small things.

Then Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.

So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost."

Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.

Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, "This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world."

John 6:10-14

Jesus performed a great miracle: He fed five thousand people with two small fishes and five loaves of bread. That was really a miracle! Yet, the most amazing thing in this story is that Jesus did not attach any importance to it. He did not talk big about this great miracle He had performed, as an ordinary man would do. He simply overlooked this exceedingly great event.

As soon as he finished feeding the people, He drew His congregation’s attention away from the miracle to the fragments of the bread left over and the remnants of the fish. It is absolutely amazing! Jesus, the great miracle worker, few moments after performing such a staggering miracle said to His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost".

Here, He was concerned about the fragments of food that had been left over after the meal! He could simply rework His miracle in order to have whole loaves over again. The question is why did He need those leftovers? What message does He want to communicate through this?

God gave us the answer in this sentence: "Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost". The emphasis here is ‘that nothing is lost’. Our Lord treats everything He has created with great care, despite the fact that He has the power to work miracles within the twinkle of an eye. Yet, He is still concerned that nothing be lost. He had provided food for five thousand people, yet He was also concerned about saving the fragments that were left over.

Then, why does God draw our attention to these fragments? To human understanding, these fragments are insignificant details hardly worth caring for. But Jesus teaches us by this case in point to learn to do as He did and focus our attention on the small things in life: in our personal relationship with God, family life and in our ministries.

A lot depends on the small things. A person’s attention is usually taken up by bigger, more noticeable things. Many people do not like turning their attention on small things. They do not like doing little works. They do not like small changes or small blessings. We want to have everything all at once and on a large scale. We want our church building to be enormous and filled with lots of people immediately.

But let me tell you: nothing will ever grow big, not in your home, family, or ministry, except you successfully pass through this test on the small things. You have to learn to appreciate every small things; everything that you think is insignificant or unworthy of serious consideration.

Jesus preached to crowds of thousands and hundreds of people and in the end chose only twelve people to be His disciples. He took time to work with each person individually.

Out of great multitudes of people coming to hear Him, He chose only twelve disciples for Himself. His attention was focused precisely on certain people so that He might raise them. It is with this strategy in mind that He also gave us the command: "Go and make disciples..."

He wants to draw our attention to a specific person, even if that person is one of the very least. If you have a big church, do not just sit back and rest on your laurels; take an interest in the person who is the very least in your church and care for that individual. Make sure you do all within your reach to help each individual to grow up.

The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.

Proverbs 13:4

A diligent person is someone who knows how to gain a thorough understanding of a matter, how to carry out a matter right through to the end, and how to start and finish in an appropriate time. The soul of the sluggard, on the other hand, just craves to have everything. He just dreams about being a great minister with a million people in his church. A dreamer will, one day, unavoidably face the fact that, in reality, he has gotten nothing. Poverty shall come upon him; problems, losses and defeats shall surround him on all sides. People, who want to get everything all at once, usually end up getting nothing in life.