This morning I read in Zechariah 4:10 the question, “Who dares despise the day of small things?” It serves as a warning and admonition to not despise or even worry about what seem like small things. I always smile because I know the Savior born as tiny baby seemed like small thing. God was helping the exiles who had returned from captivity understand that He was doing great things, but they often started–or appeared as–small things.
I don’t want to dare despise the small things God is doing. There’s always a big picture that I cannot yet see. And I think of the small things of a small day in a small town: the going to church, the serving of lunch, the praying and the singing. I don’t despise the day of small things.
As Charles Spurgeon said, “It is usually the way of the Lord to begin His great works with small things.”
He writes, “We see it every day, for the first dawn of light is but feeble, and yet by and by, it grows into the full noontide heat and glory. We know how the early spring comes with its buds of promise, but it takes some time before we get to the beauties of summer or the wealth of autumn. How tiny is the seed that is sown in the garden, yet out of it there comes the lovely flower! How small is the acorn, but how great is the oak that grows up from it! The stream commences with but a gentle rivulet, but it flows on till it becomes a brook, and soon a river—perhaps a mighty Amazon, before its course is run. God begins with men in ‘the day of small things;’ He began so with us.”