SOWING SMALL SEEDS THAT CREATE HUGE IMPACT
All of us desire God to do big things in and through our lives. Many of us may even in our minds be waiting for that big break. I imagined as a young man once, “What if Billy Graham called me one day and said, Dale I heard you’re a great preacher, I’m not feeling well, “could you fill in for me and preach at my crusade this week?” Especially, Americans we like to think of big things. But what is revealed in Scripture is that God plans to do great things and release great power through things that might seem small and insignificant. This is what he did with a little boy’s lunch. Perhaps there were many others who had a lunch and could’ve done the small thing that led to a big miracle but only one boy did.
During WW2 we know that the countries at war were looking for weapons to dominate and end the war in their favor. Of course it turned out that it was through tapping into the smallest thing on earth, the atom, that the United States discovered a force and power that was strategic in ending the war in our favor.
Jesus would say of faith, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can say to this mountain be removed and if you don’t doubt in your heart it will come to pass.” Seeds were one of the favorite objects of Jesus’ parables. I believe He was trying to show us how so many of the things we know exist and are available for us in Heaven are released from the Spirit realm into the natural, through small acts of faith.
When we do something as simple as giving a cup of cold water to someone in need we are profoundly worshiping Jesus and storing up treasures in Heaven. In this study I realized that what we give here on earth is stored up like rain in clouds or interest in a savings account. The best thing is that we don’t have to die to access all of those treasures; they become available at crucial moments in naturally supernatural ways. Proverbs 19:17 says, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.”
I remember after a surprise meeting with the then President of Zambia, where I had the honor of being invited to his kind of white house. I had the sense that the Lord was saying, “Because you’ve loved and blessed those desperately poor orphans and children, I wanted to bless you by letting you stand before a President.”
I love a saying I heard some time ago that said, “Sow a thought, reap a word, sow a word, reap a deed, sow a deed, reap a habit, sow a habit and reap your character, so your character and reap your destiny.”
Little things that we are doing every day as small as thinking and speaking unknowingly become part of a chain that leads to who we become, the opportunities we discover, and ways God will use us. Can I challenge us today to think of the little things we could sow today in many areas of our life that if we sow faithfully will store up treasures and Heaven and prepare us to receive, become, and do things we never thought would be possible?
What if we replaced a negative thought with a positive declaration? What if we gave a little bit bigger tip than we had planned? What if we added words of gratitude to our routine conversations? What if we just began to pray for one other country or person than we normally would? What if we volunteered to do something positive like write cards or assist neighbors on a weekly basis? What if instead of asking God what is something great I can do for you, we asked what are some small things I could do today in a faithful way that would be a seed of faith through which you could work to create something great?
What we know is that the Bible teaches us that small things create space for God to step in and do great things.