Our personal chronicle of God’s faithfulness is not divided between great and small, but written word by word, passage by passage, experience by experience. His glory comes in all shapes and sizes. And often in unexpected ways. We are drawn to pray about our monumental crises. But God uses the little stuff to remind us that He is here. He is still here. He cares about us more than we can know.
And God loves to surprise us.
While waiting for my granddaughter at volleyball practice, I discovered that a tiny dove had fallen off my necklace. In the grand scheme of things, that should not be a big deal. But it made me sad. I’ve had this simple Huguenot cross for almost fifty years. Was it in the Costco parking lot? On the floor of the hardware department in Walmart? Down our shower drain?
We rarely hesitate to pray about the huge stuff. But do we pray when it seems too little, too ridiculous, even embarrassing to come before Him?
With all the heavy, complicated and difficult things to pray about this week – illness, hardship, and griefs one after another -- I felt a bit ashamed even talking to God about it, but I did. Please show me what to do about it. Guide my thoughts, my eyes, and my heart. And then as I drove home, I prayed about all the rest.
Later that night, as I walked back to our closet to put away my shoes, something caught my eye on the bathroom floor. It was that tiny little dove. I felt really humbled that God cared even about this tiny little instance. And I realized how much more God is capable of doing in our lives, far more than we know and way beyond what we pray about.
Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in Your eyes, O Lord GOD.” 2 Samuel 7. 19
Both the vertical and the horizontal are seamlessly woven. Prayer helps us to see and experience another dimension of God and to recognize what is powerfully unfolding before us, totally outside of ourselves. That which we want to explain away but we cannot.
In the midst of World War 2, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury said, “When I stop praying, the coincidences stop happening.”
Is it too much for us to recognize the hand of God? What does it take to acknowledge Him? Nothing random at all.
Praying is a way of moving through life, knowing that we can discover God in unexpected and inexplicable places. He delights in us. We are His beloved. God reveals Himself to us in the tiny details.
Your way was through the sea, Your path through the great waters, yet Your footprints were unseen. Psalm 77. 19
All of our profound moments are built upon what only appears as “insignificant” details glued together. It is realizing that His thoughtful, tender, totally unnecessary actions show how much He loves us.
As in our closest relationships, it is not the huge events that bind us together with Him but the daily engraved moments.
God gives us the surprising chocolate chips when we need them the most, when we expect them the least, the sweet little surprises to assure us of His Presence, even right in the midst of our impossible places, our heartaches, our stumbles, and the very details of our lives.
He hears the cries of our hearts, even the whimpers. God sees our prayers as a means of revealing Himself to us.
God listened. God listens. God will still be listening. Nothing escapes His attention. So much escapes ours.
Did it even occur to me to pray about that? The little stuff is never little stuff.
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