By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors
I was told of a lady who gave a testimony in a Baptist church of how she had lost her knitting. She searched high and low for it in her house. Becoming frustrated trying to find it, she stopped and prayed. Shortly thereafter, she noticed it right in the middle of the room she had been searching. She just hadn’t noticed it was there. She praised God for finding her knitting.
Is God really a God who cares about such tiny matters? The person who related this story to me would say not. “Is that all faith is, that God can find things for us?” Certainly faith is much more than that; but the larger definition of faith does not invalidate trusting God for small things.
The definition of faith is Biblically stated in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We are assured that Jesus Christ has saved us and we have an eternal home with God. We are convinced of this even though we have not seen it take place. This is the most important kind of faith, saving faith.
But faith in small things is not invalidated by this definition. Matthew 21:22 says, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
Allow me to give an example of my own. I had to move recently after my building changed ownership (my last landlord went bankrupt). While I was deciding to move out, I talked to the new landlords, and they asked me, “I don’t suppose you have a receipt for your damage deposit?” My original landlord’s accounting records were not very good, and there was a chance from their perspective that I had not paid a damage deposit and therefore was not owed one.
I thought I had the receipt somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. I resigned myself to the fact they would probably get to keep my deposit. But still, I did pray about it, asking God to show me where that receipt was. After having prayed about it, I basically forgot about it, leaving it in God’s hands.
It turned out that I had to move during a week of deadline pressure at work, so I was working a lot of overtime and getting very little time to move things. To save time, I was just upending drawers into garbage bags, no careful sorting of my belongings. While I was upending one of these drawers, a small piece of paper fell to the floor, the only thing that didn’t go into the garbage bag. It was the receipt for my damage deposit.
Do I base my faith on these things? No, these things are not the cause of my faith. They are one of the products of my faith. You see, I do believe that God answers prayer. Because I asked, believing, as Jesus said in Matthew 21:22, I received an answer to my prayer and the receipt was found.
God created the heavens and the earth. Is it too large for God to help us in a small way? No. Is it too small for God to help us in a small way? I’ll let the Bible answer.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5,6). If I acknowledge that God will help me in all ways, even helping me save $250, will He not help me in those ways? According to this passage, He will.
“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26). Here, Jesus was directly addressing material needs and our anxiousness concerning them. He assured us that the Father would help us in this area.
There is the chance that the person who belittled the knitting lady’s faith will read this article and think that I am a simpleton for believing that God will act in these ways. But I am not ashamed of the Word of the Lord, and I am not ashamed to humble myself like a child before my God. “Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'” (Matthew 18:2-4).
We don’t need to adopt sophisticated, worldly ways of thinking, but we need to place that childlike trust in God that in all things, He will look after us. “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness'; and again, 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.'” (1 Corinthians 3:18-20).
While I have been writing to you about faithfulness in small things, I would like also to address unfaithfulness in small things.
Sometimes it seems to me that Christians today are too caught up in the great evils to address the small evils. Certainly Christians notice violent theft and murder, and of course the sexual sins are always at center stage in this day and age. But God cares just as much that you deal properly in business, for example, being totally honest with your clients and dealing fairly with them.
In the King James Version, Matthew 7:12 reads, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Most modern versions fail to translate the form of the word pas that occurs at the beginning of this verse in the Greek. It means “all things.”
God doesn’t want you to acknowledge Him in a few things, He wants you to acknowledge Him in all things. I quoted Proverbs 3:5,6 earlier, and I will quote Proverbs 3:6 here again, “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Not just in a few ways: in all ways.
I don’t want to talk about punishment here; I want to talk about blessing. God’s blessings will only follow in an area of your life if you will acknowledge God in that area of your life. For example, if you are promiscuous, you are essentially guaranteed never to find true love. If you are dishonest in business, you will strive and strive and it will never be enough.
And finally, if you will not trust in God to find your knitting, He’ll never find your knitting for you. If you will not trust in God to find that missing receipt, He’ll never help you find it. But if you will repent of not acknowledging God in all your ways, you will find that He will help you in every way.
It is hard for some to imagine that the God of the universe cares about a small thing like a lady finding her knitting. I believe it. Truly Jesus told us in Matthew 10:29-31, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
To have God’s blessing in any area of our lives, we need to believe that God will bless us in that way. He won’t reward greed. James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” But God will certainly reward faithfulness, even in small things.
Faithfulness In Small Things is Copyright © 1999 by Compass Distributors
Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.
Matthew 7:12 quoted from the King James Version.