From Soul Food, by George D. Watson

Little Things

In the kingdom of God, which is exactly opposite to the kingdom of this world, things rank by the greatness of quality, and not by that of quantity. Our God proves His Divinity by the notice and emphasis He puts on small things. Despise not “the day of small things.”* (Zechariah 4:10) “Because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.”* (Luke 19:7)

There is no better way in the world to test every trait in a soul than by little things. Every Christian duty, every grace of the Spirit, every privilege of life, is being proved and manifested to the eyes of God and angels in things so small that we seldom take thought of them. It is the unpremeditated and instinctive actions and words that reveal the reality of what is in us, and not those large, conspicuous things for which we especially arm ourselves. The most essential grace for a human being is humility; God appreciates a soul in proportion to the depth of its humility more than all other things combined; but this very grace of lowliness of heart finds its appropriate home in small things.

The sweetest things in the world—the best prayers, the poorest self-denial, the tenderest words of sympathy—by a delicate instinct of the Holy Spirit, hide themselves in little secret ways, as the turtle-dove will build its nest in unthought-of, lowly places on the ground. There are some great sorrows and sufferings that can be written out in history for the world to see; but the greater martyrs are those who have thousands of agonies in small and hid-away matters seen only by the Infinite eye. To suffer with a patient heart in things so common and small that people never think of noticing them is to glorify God in a high degree; for if we suffer in ways so concealed that no eyes but His can see it, then surely it is to please Him only. Fanatics and self-made martyrs like to show their sufferings to notice on a large scale, as a dog will make a loud howl over a small hurt; but a real lowly soul will suffer a hundred-fold more in silence in little things without advertising it, as the lamb will endure a great wound in silence.

In every age of the world, the Holy Spirit has been traveling away from the big things into the small, in order to find places where God alone shall be exalted. If we could always remain broken and contrite and little, God would always show Himself to us, and reveal His personal presence in the insignificant things of daily life, and the Holy Ghost would work marvelously through us in sweet and quiet ways, utterly incredible to the great and wise ones. God alone knows when we are really little. Many will proclaim that they feel their utter nothingness, but in one hour after cannot peacefully and lovingly endure to be contradicted, or reproved, or slighted, or slandered. What we are in the sight of God, that we are, no more and no less, regardless of what men or saints or angels think of us, and regardless of what we think of ourselves. The Holy Ghost knows when we are little, and His abiding and wondrous revealings will continue just so long as our infantile littleness continues.

In regard to our work, there is more real holy labor in the small than in great things; for just see, in any great work there is human sympathy, man’s praises, a field for enthusiasm and renown, a sphere for the display of gifts and zeal, and motives to arouse the natural heart; but in a little work wrought in obscurity, all these high things are weeded out. I do not say that a great work may not be done purely for God alone, but it furnishes a field for so much of human; but in the hid-away and shut-in ways of life, our God gives us walled-in garden to sow down with deeds and words and manners and looks, out of of a loving, tender spirit, with no incentive but love, and no purpose but to please Him. A little work done only for God to know has in it a heavenly courage, a purity of intention, a sweetness of love, which is very difficult to put in a notable act.