Faithful In These Little Things

Life generously serves us,
With problems and opportunities,
A lot of which may not reflect our goals,
The goals of life at its best,
We want more lucrative opportunities,
Opportunities that will make people want to take selfies with us,
Letting the world know that we and they are bosom buddies,
As they feed their ego that they, too, are well-connected,
And if problems be our portion,
Then we want to deal with bigger ones,
The ones that will make our names candidates for the Guinness Book,
So everywhere we go, we sing the refrain of “the bigger, the better!”
Unfortunately, life has refused to work like that,
Life has established its training school,
Not in its most glaring opportunities,
But in these little things that matter,
When you think of spreading your bed every morning as duty, life has provided it as a training school,
When you think of learning how to do justice to some dish, life has that, too, as a learning curve,
When you think of learning to use the ox-bow plow, life could be preparing you for the bulldozer,
Life prepares people for its greatest opportunities,
In these little things,
Think of when you complained when asked to wield the shepherd’s staff,
Think of when you refused that job because they called junior something, yet you were the only one with Ivy League School Paper,
Think of the time when you forfeited the chance to perform with diligence and grit in that small area,
You may realize too late,
That in those little things were hidden your training for,
And fitness for weightier responsibilities.

None can know what may be God’s purpose in His discipline; but all may be certain that faithfulness in little things is the evidence of fitness for greater responsibilities. Every act of life is a revelation of character, and he only who in small duties proves himself “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed” (2 Timothy 2:15) will be honored by God with weightier trusts

—Ellen Gould White,  Educat p.  61