Jesus believes in the power of smallness.
Over and over again, Jesus brings us back to beauty of small interventions: a towel and basin, a cup of cold water, a little bit of fish and a few loaves, the smallest seed and a little bit of leaven.
Sometimes, I think we are looking for the big moment, where we will have this HUGE impact. Everyone will notice and our names will be up in lights. The reality is the measure of our impact is not found in the BIG moments, but the SMALL ones. It’s the accumulation of small, intentional, strategic interventions that God will take and use to make a huge impact.
Jesus believes in the immensity of smallness.
When these small interventions are implemented, these little choices when applied to our lives and the world, collectively through the power of God, result in big changes.
A received an email from a friend of mine yesterday. Richard and his wife Nancy, lead all of our teams that serve at the Hope Rescue Mission. Here’s a story of small interventions accumulating into a big impact.
During the summer of 2005, Nancy wanted to give our 1996 Camry to her sister who was in need of a car. When we bought that Camry, Nancy really wanted a mini-van but we didn't find one that we liked so we got another Camry.
Well - now that we're car shopping again, the idea of a mini-van came up again and I knew that this time we'd get a mini-van although I had my reservations - did we really one? It'd be helpful for when we took food to Hope for our monthly meals, but outside of that, why have one for just two people? Also, the price of gas was soaring - up to $2.50 a gallon then - and I wasn't sold on getting one. But since Nancy wanted it, we got one. The most expensive vehicle we will ever buy!!!
I continued to have doubts about having such a vehicle, but I thought maybe God had a plan for it - and He did.
In August 2006 I contacted Hope about taking residents to GCC and from the start I had some people come with me. One of the first people got baptized that September at the Life Action Ranch lake. For the next few years nearly every Sunday I had at least one person and at times a van-full of people going to GCC for the 9:30 service.
But during late 2009 things died off - I had an occasional person and then none - and after awhile, I stopped going down to Hope Sunday morning to get people. I suppose God's plan had ended for this.
But this past spring, I got an email from a lady who works at Hope asking if I still came to get people - so I started again and now each week have several people eagerly come along. They have a true passion for GCC and how the messages are changing their lives. A few came to know about GCC by going over to Monroe Circle Community Center and so they wanted to try us out - and they loved it!!
A second ministry also happened - this one more of a surprise. One of our Chinese students wanted to come to GCC and so we would take Jingjing Guan to GCC in 2007-8. That worked out well and we enjoyed doing this. But I realized that there might be more that we could do to help out our international students. We later got a couple more Asian students - both in my class - and we did a few things with them the following year, but became more involved with them during the summer. Then during the fall of 2009, two Korean students came here and met up with one of the Asian students and we took them to Walmart the morning after they arrived on campus. That started a relationship with them and we did more things with them - one was a regular attending GCC last fall. Last summer we were quite involved helping out the Asian students. We never planned on this ministry - but God opened the door for it - and without our mini-van we wouldn't be able to take several Asian students to the store or movie or whatever. We have really enjoyed serving them. Most are not Christians and we pray that they see Christ in us. Maybe the seeds are being planted and someday they will desire to know Christ.
It's exciting to see how God sets something in motion that we initially have no idea about. We serve an amazing God whose ways are so much better than our own.
That’s one mini-van on a mission! I love how Jesus can take anything we offer - and if we are willing to give ourselves along with it - take that thing and unleash his Life and Mission through it.
What apparently small and insignificant thing do you have in your hand today to offer? How could Jesus’ mission flow through it and through you? If you have a small interventions story to offer, I’d love to hear about it!
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