Little Things, Big Things

“I can’t find my pink socks!”  

“I want Rabbit!”

“I don’t want to sit in the middle!”

If you’re a parent, I guessing you have, on occasion, been frustrated by such phrases. Perhaps when you’re

• leaving home on vacation… 
• or late for church…
• or just trying to go to the grocery store with two preschoolers… 
• or going to the park…
• or grandma’s house.

You have a goal in mind. You have someplace to be. You are trying to do something or go somewhere important, and the little ones around you had no concept of the “big picture”. Sometimes it seems their entire world, their horizon, is within the reach of their little hands. Those socks you put on them against their will have the gravity of a nuclear arms race.

Frustrating isn't it? It’s especially when the “Big Thing” you are trying to do is for their benefit or enjoyment. We are beyond the toddler and preschool years in my house now, but not that long ago I was there, and the phrase “little things, big things” was coined in my family.

After a little explanation, my kids came to understand what “little things, big things” meant. It was a simple way of saying,

 “We are trying to do something you will like, but you are getting hung up on little things that really don’t matter. Leave it. Forget it. Get over it.  Let’s go do the ‘Big Thing.’”  

It worked. They got it.  They have learned, for the most part, to sidestep the minutia and keep their eyes on the big picture, much to my relief.

The whole concept of “Little Things, Big Things” makes me wonder if our Heavenly Father sometimes has the same frustration with us. Certainly we can find such frustration in the Bible. In Numbers 13 and 14 we find God quite frustrated with Israel. He has led them to the threshold of the Promised Land. He has already began the process of giving the land to them (13:1).

Victory was within reach…and they choked.

They look past God to see the bounty of the land.
Then they look past the bounty of the land and saw the obstacle:

Big, fortified cities filled with big strong people with scary names:

• Sons of Anak
• Amalekites,
• Hittites,
• Jebusites, 
• Amorites,
• and Canaanites.

Now, impenetrable fortresses filled with corn-fed Canaanites could look scary  to be sure, but only because they lost sight of  “The Big Thing”. They forgot to look up. Had they looked to God, what seem like a “big thing” would have become a “little thing”. They forgot about God’s promise. They forgot about his gift to them. Above them was a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. They had seen God part the Red Sea with a wind. They had seen an entire Egyptian army stand back in fear of the fire of God. They had seen the plagues that struck Egypt and the work of the death angel. They had seen the glory of God and heard his voice at Sinai. Then, standing at the threshold of promise, they choked.

To bring this a little closer to home now, I wonder how often God is at work in each of our lives and in our churches. He has a plan to lead us into a land of promise, a land of peace, and we get hung up on the details. We lose sight of God's big picture for us. Rather than allowing God to bring us to a place of victory we get hung up in an endless cycle of "wilderness wandering" just like the children of Israel.

So, let me encourage you, friend, figure out what is hindering you in your walk with the Lord. Jesus wants you to live life in a place of spiritual victory, not defeat. The magnitude of your biggest obstacle is diminished if you look at the greatness of your Savior. Look to Jesus, and follow his leading. He will take you to "Big Things."

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." [Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV]

What goes around comes around...

I want to show you a story about kindness that you may have never seen before. It is from the life of the great king of Israel, King David.


David is an interesting guy. We first start following his story when he is a shepherd boy in the Judean pastures. In the Bible we read about his triumphs, his trials, his failures and his comebacks. This story of kindness spans a great portion of his life.


In 2 Samuel 17:27-29 (esv) we read:

"When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, 'The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.'"

Here is the setting for these verses. David had a son (one of many) named Absalom. Absalom staged a coup against his father, and David and his household fled into the wilderness, running for their lives.

Now David (and company) left Jerusalem with little more than the clothes on their backs. There were women and children in the group, and David himself was now advancing in years. They had no food and no bedding. The situation was serious and getting worse.

As they were running they came to a place called Mahanaim. Word of the coup was spreading. They were met there by three men; Shobi, Machir, and Barzillai. These men helped David and his family in a time of desperation by bringing them bedding and some high calorie, high protein food.

Now remember, there was a coup underway, and these guys were sticking their necks out by picking sides. Why would they do such a thing? Why not hang back and see who was going to come out on top first?

There is an interesting story for each of these guys, but I want us to look at this fellow known as “Machir…of Lo-debar” for a minute.
  
Machir's back story

If we scroll back through the life of David to 2 Samuel chapter 9 we will find him as a much younger man. At this point in his life he is on top of the world. He has finally succeeded in defeating his enemies and the Kingdom of Israel has been consolidated under him.

Then he does a very classy, non-typical thing, especially for monarchs of that period in history. He sent for the crippled, orphaned grandson of the previous king, King Saul. The boy's name was Mephibosheth.  David brought the boy to sit continually at the royal table and restored to him his grandfather's property.

In this event, David sowed seeds of kindness in the way he treated this unfortunate child.  He had no way of knowing that some day those seeds would come to fruition in his own life.

How can we draw such a connection? Well, let's take a look at where they had to go to get Mephibosheth so they could bring him to the kings house:

"The king [David] said … 'Where is he?' And Ziba said to the king, 'He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.'" [2 Samuel 9:4 esv]

 Yes, that's right. It is the same guy. Many years before he had watched as David went out of his way to show kindness to this crippled orphan boy.  Now David was in need and it was payback time.  Funny how that turned out.

What goes around does come back around after all…