The God of Small Beginnings

Photo courtesy Erik Thorson. Copyright 2012.

For who has despised the day of small things?
Zechariah 4:10

You would think the King of the universe would love to do things in a big way, like humans are prone to do. Humans love doing things in big way, and for a big audience. We yearn for the bright lights and those fifteen minutes of fame. But God, who is fully capable of pulling off the grand show, appears instead to love small beginnings. They seem to be His favorite kind. Unlike His creation, He shuns the spotlight.

He populated an entire planet with two people fashioned from dirt and built a nation from a sheep-herder. He took a man from the dirty water of the Nile and made him a deliverer. He made soldiers from slaves and conquered whole kingdoms with simple acts of obedience. He flattened tower walls with a shout of praise and sent fire from heaven at the sound of a prayer.

He called a shepherd boy from the hills and set him over an entire nation. He used David's simple songs of anguish and praise to bring comfort to millions of hurting people for generations after him. He set a man upon the throne because he only asked for wisdom. God sent a Jewish captive to save her people from the plot of a powerful and deadly enemy.

And when the appointed time came for the King to set foot in His kingdom, it was not the grand halls of the earth that received His Majesty, but a cave. He arrived not to the roar of adoring crowds, but to the wondering whispers of shepherds. He didn't come in a blaze of glory, but under a shimmering star. The first Voice the earth heard from its King was not the triumphant shout of victory, but the wail of a baby. The first witnesses of His glory were his parents and some animals. He arrived surrounded by little warmth, light or comfort. Instead, He brought all three with Him.

Out of prison cells across the centuries since, and from the cracked lips of the suffering, God's glory has emerged. Beaten, persecuted, despised, and weak - God's people have always been the lowly canvas upon which He has painted His masterpiece of love. From the small strokes of color each life pours out upon His palette, He produces a work of breathtaking beauty and scope.

God rejoices in small beginnings because it gives Him a chance to work; a chance to be our strength, our comfort, our Deliverer. It offers Him the opportunity to fill the vacuum left by our nothingness. He can't fill us when we're already full of ourselves. Smallness keeps us empty, so we can be filled with His glory.

Thank God for small beginnings. May we always be small in our own eyes.