Reflection This Week
LITTLE THINGS MEAN EVERYTHING

   We seem to live in a world where “bigger” means “better”, where “never enough” always seems to trump “more than enough”, where doing our best is often not good enough. We place on pedestals those in power and look down on those who have little or none. We value what is transitory, what we can’t take with us and devalue most of what has any lasting value at all.

   Granted this may be an over-simplification or a vast generalization of this word’s value system, but I think it is close. While in our head we may truly disagree with these worldly values, we often act as if we are right on board with them even in the recesses of our innermost being. If our culture does not control us, it certainly consumes much of us and often directs how we act.

   This is true even (especially?) when it comes to our relationship with our God. So often when we tathose big things in our lives, serious issues beyond our control, out of our hands. We don’t bother God with the little problems. What we forget is that we cannot solve ke it to our God it prayer, what we are taking are or even resolve those little problems in our lives without God’s help. In fact, whenever we did resolve one of those issues, if we look back on it, we will discover that God was right there with us. We simply did not recognize God’s presence.

   Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great twentieth-century German theologian, made this astute observation. “Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts he has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for the daily gifts…. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet not really so small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from him the little things?”

   As children our parents entrusted us with more and more responsibility as we grew older. That increased trust only came after we had proved ourselves. They did not entrust us with big things until we demonstrated to them that we could handle the little things. They would have been foolish to do so, otherwise it would have been a disaster waiting to happen. We do the same for with our children, with those over whom we have been given some authority. So, said Bonhoeffer, God does with us.

   In this life and in this world little things mean a lot because, in truth, they mean everything. That is true in our relationship with one another and in our relationship with our God. That is true even when we succumb to the world’s value system and strive for the bigger and the better, whatever that bigger and better may happen to be at that moment in our lives.

   If we do not love, cherish, respect the little things, we will not do so were we to obtain something bigger, greater, more important. If, as Bonhoeffer alludes, we take God’s daily gifts to us for granted, how can we expect God to entrust is with something bigger and more valuable? In fact, should we?               WJP