The God of Small Beginnings

 

For who has despised the day of small things? – Zechariah 4:10

Humans love to do things in a big way.

We're always searching for the breakout audience, the bright lights, and those fifteen minutes of fame. If we had the power of God, we'd create a universal circus of obnoxious grandstanding as we fought for fame.

God, the All-Powerful One, never flaunts His authority for personal gain, breathing life instead into the small flame of faith. Unlike His creation, He delights in the humble and the vulnerable. Through the cacophony of much-speaking, He alone hears the cry of the dawn-whisperer. 

The cosmos sprung to life at His Word. He populated a planet with two people fashioned from dirt and rebuilt Earth with a shipbuilder. He drew a man from the dirty water of the Nile and made him a deliverer. He created soldiers from slaves and conquered whole kingdoms with simple acts of obedience.

He flattened tower walls with a shout of praise and sent fire from heaven at the sound of a prayer.

He called a shepherd boy from the hills and set him over an entire nation. He immortalized David’s simple songs of anguish and praise to bring comfort to millions of hurting people for generations after him. He set a man upon the throne because he only asked for wisdom. He sent a Jewish captive to save her people from the plot of a powerful and deadly enemy.

At the appointed time for the King to set foot in His kingdom, it was not the grand halls of earth that received His Majesty, but a cave. He didn’t arrive to the roar of adoring crowds, but to the wondering whispers of shepherds. He didn’t make His entrance in a blaze of earthly glory, but in the light of a shimmering star and the song of angels.

The first Voice the earth heard from its King was not the triumphant shout of victory, but the wail of a baby. The first to behold His face were His parents and miscellaneous stable animals. He arrived surrounded by little warmth, light, or comfort. 

He brought all three with Him to offer a desperate world.

Out of prison cells across the centuries and from the cracked lips of suffering, God's glory emerges.

Beaten, persecuted, despised, and weak, God’s people are the lowly canvas upon which He paints His masterpiece of love. The light and dark colors of each life committed to Him produce a work of breathtaking beauty and scope.

God rejoices in small beginnings because it gives Him a chance to work; a chance to be our strength; the space to reveal Himself as our Deliverer. It offers Him the opportunity to fill the vacuum left by our nothingness. Since He can’t fill us with His glory when we’re already full of ourselves, smallness keeps us empty and available.

Thank God for small beginnings. May we always be small in our own eyes.