Don't Despise the Small Things
We work from our identity, not for our identity. Sometimes in the smallest things, God's doing the biggest work in us and in others.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
“For who despises the day of small things?” – Zechariah 4:10
Some people go skiing for Spring Break, the Reissigs get tonsils out. That’s what I kept telling people the last few weeks. If you’ve been following my Substack since the start of the year, we’ve had one weird thing after another. We’ve not had anything life-threatening (praise the Lord), so while it’s been uncomfortable, it hasn’t been horrific. But let’s just say I envisioned the first quarter of 2024 going differently than it has so far.
I read the above verse from Zechariah in my Bible reading a couple weeks ago and it hasn’t left me. There are a lot of “days of small things” that come to us, right? It could be in the ordinary faithfulness of a job—like filing documents, answering phones, or seeing patients. It is routine and normal, and it feels so mundane—so small. Is there something more, you wonder? Or maybe you’re in the monotony of small children, the same number of diaper changes every day, the same thing for breakfast and lunch, and the same obedience struggles meet you when the toddler cries for you to get her out of bed in the morning. There must be something more, you mutter into the void of the dirty dishes starting back at you from the sink.
There is always something more.
I’ve felt this tension acutely over the years. When I graduated from college and didn’t know what to do next, I felt my identity leave as I walked across the stage with my diploma. Who am I without a job lined up? When I thought I’d have a baby and instead found myself in a classroom of high school students. Who am I without the baby I’ve prayed for? When I had a baby (two at a time!) and I missed my old life. When I sent my last kid to school and I started a full-time job. There are things we expect out of life and things we receive. Sometimes what we receive feels smaller than what we expected. Sometimes no one sees what we’re doing. Is it good enough?
I think women uniquely struggle with these questions because our lives are so transitional. And apparently, my heart needs more than one post to process these many “days of small things.”
Without being too graphic (for the male readers here), we change every month. Depending on when the “change” begins for you, you could live with this monthly upheaval for over forty years. The only constant is that every month you have transition, disorientation, and even death in your own body so new life can form (or not form).
We have babies. And our lives turn upside down again. Even if you choose not to work outside the home, your body changes multiple times. First to grow a baby, then to deliver a baby, and then to feed a baby—and try to heal in the midst of it all. Then sometimes you do it all over again a few years later (or less). If you work outside the home, you do all of this in the context of career. You try to fit pre-pregnancy brain and body back into post-pregnancy work environment. It doesn’t always fit the same. Let’s be honest, nothing ever fits the same again (literally and figuratively). Can anyone tell that my body and brain are working overtime here, we wonder. Don’t despise the day of small things.
We go through menopause, saying “goodbye” to the monthly cycle but “hello” to the void the hormone departure brings. Often this is in the time that our kids are leaving for college, or our parents are aging. The dreams we had for this season fall in line with the reality of the changing seasons of a woman’s life. The “small things” we thought we passed on when we loaded up the dorm room, return in the form of nursing homes and grandchildren arriving. We’re left reckoning with a new set of small things that need our embracing, not despising.
What are these small things? Why do they cause so much struggle?
I think part of the reason why women meet so many varied changes is because society is set-up to avoid these changes, and women can’t avoid their bodies. We live in a world made for men. Men can have children but face no consequences, and unless they choose sleepless nights, pass blissfully through the transition that often moves women to the offramp of their career. The issue isn’t desire for women. The issue is the system isn’t set-up for women to thrive, unless you want to avoid biology all together. And many women do not.
But there is a contentment aspect as well. God, through Zechariah, tells his people to not despise the small ways he works. This is in the context of judgment, where they had repeatedly disobeyed him, and he was sending them a warning. But the principle remains. Both in judgment and in discipline, God is unconcerned with undetected miracles. He knows what he’s doing and needs no fanfare. If you can’t see his mighty hand, he says “Look closer. Don’t despise the small ways I work.” Deliverance often comes through the unremarkable. Through the unexpected savior, through the hand of a servant—even the means of a torture chamber. The cross was not the expected means of salvation, yet it’s what God used and what we needed. The miracles he performed on earth weren’t from the mountaintops. They were in the family weddings (John 2), and in the homes of the ordinary (John 4). Don’t despise the small things.
We’ve grown conditioned in our Western culture to attributing God’s hand with the spectacular. The more followers you have, the more God is moving. The bigger your church, the greater God’s power on display.
But that’s never how God moves. All throughout scripture, he points to the opposite. He picks the smallest tribe, the youngest brother, the most unlikely vessel of service, to do his work.
This is encouraging for us, in our days of small things. Whatever small thing you face today, it’s not a failure. It’s God’s instrument of glory.
For the last two weeks, mine has been taking care of two of my boys who got their tonsils out. I planned for one week of care, not two. I planned for them to be in school last week, they weren’t. In my lowest moments, I was mad about it. It felt like an interruption to my plans. But in perspective, it’s my day of small things, ones God tells me not to despise. There was still glory to be had, good work to be done—even if no one saw it.
Society tells us our value is wrapped up in our work. Our work matters and God is pleased with faithful work. But we work from our identity, not for our identity. We work in security, not need for validation.
The days of small things are hard, especially when those days turn into months and turn into years. The seasons where you can’t see where God has you or where he’s taking you. The seasons where you’ve lost something you love only to find no new love taking its place. The seasons where you are forced to sit in the smallness, wondering if smallness will forever be your lot.
“Don’t despise it,” God says.
In the small things, I’m doing something new. Someday you’ll see it. Until then, work from your identity, even in the small things, because in it he is well-pleased.
Thank you, once again, Courtney.