Learning from Little Things

I’m strolling through a local plant nursery with a gardening expert. We’re working on a kind of makeover of the gardens at our house. At one point she smiles and says, “This is like a candy store for you.” And it is. I’m struck with wonder at this small slice of the diversity that is God’s creation.

I get an email from someone who’s read Dancing Priest and loaned it to a relative. The relative read it and said, “For the first time, I understand what you’ve been talking about when you talk about faith.” An executive at work stops me in the hallway and tells me his 14-year-old son read it and loved it.

Our grandson squeals with delight when he sees our car pull into the driveway.

I read about the Secret Service scandal with Colombian prostitutes, and I grieve for what’s happening to the character of our country.

I hear that Charles Colson died, and I feel thankful for his incredible wxample of redemption and God’s grace. And then I read that Franky Schaeffer, the son of Francis Schaeffer, uses Colson’s death as an occasion to attack both Colson and evangelicals. He actually wrote two blog posts but took the first one down, because it didn’t go far enough.

I’m sitting in a discussion group, and I hear people speaking who sound like my father, my son and myself. I begin to understand what the discussion group is about.

I read about growing hostility to Christians around the globe – China, Russia, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, the United States – and I think “they will hate you because they hate me.”

I see the move “October Baby,” and I marvel that Samuel Goldwyn would help produce it.

Little things, really, Little ways. Little means God uses to speak to us.

In Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, Katie Davis speaks of the little ways through which God touches her life – a comment as a gas station, a children’s fight, hearing of the murder of a child she doesn’t know, hearing the voice of one of her adopted children and knowing it’s one of hers, getting a van to help transports food and children. Each way is both an encouragement and something new to learn.

In what little way have you experienced God’s love and teaching?

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading Kisses from Katie. To see more posts on this chapter, “A Different Kind of Education,” please visit Jason’s site, Connecting to Impact.