It’s About the Little Things

I have a confession to make:
sometimes, I enjoy tracing rivers back to their sources on Google Maps. It always amazes me how such mighty streams begin as obscure trickles. Yet, one creek after another feeds and joins into what becomes a river we all know.

It’s about the little things.
Small choices and reactions to circumstances all flow together until before you know it, you have a life whose journey resembles one of these rivers. Each little decision, from whether you turn left or right on the street to whether you adopted that dog to how you cared for another who was hurting all roll along with the current of your life. Little things are never to be underestimated.

“When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

Verse: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29
26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy (high born) when God called you. 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world (low-born. Peasants, slaves, outcasts, foreigners, Other ways etc.), things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

Little Streams in our lives often lead to big choices. A boulder we might encounter just might be the exact thing God uses to redirect our lives. Who knows? Maybe you’re in something like this right now.

The truth is that God likes the imperfect. It grants him more elbow room to work. Sometimes what is cracked is beautiful. Scars become holy symbols. Heartache resolves in a higher kind of joy.

Did you know there is one particular crack in the Sangre De Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico from which all of the Midwest’s weather flows through when it comes from the southwest? The weather crack in the mountains lies just off I 25 near Las Vegas, NM. I make a note of it every time I drive through. All from one eroded crack does all the rain and the wind funnel on by, past on into the East.

Little choices over time shape your life. Instead of insisting we’re the captains at the wheel of our own lives, we keep our eyes peeled for what Jesus chooses with us and places before us.

But how to know when this occurs?

To hear, one must first be silent.
Be still and Know that I am God.
My ways are not your ways.

All these little choices – one river. Watch for waterfalls and hidden rocks. Boiling lands and cool forest shade. All is sheer gift from one we can Trust.

Ryan

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