Little by Little
We recently heard someone quote an old saying which says, “The greatest things done on earth have been done little by little.”
When we refer to things done on earth we naturally are speaking of the deeds of man and not the wonders of God. There is quite a lesson to learn from this fact of doing great things little by little.
In the vast world in which we live today, everyone wants to take short cuts to the top. Few are willing to do things little by little and yet when we study nature we see that God teaches us that great things are done slowly.
The giant Sequoia trees, the oldest living things in the world, grow exceedingly slowly but look at the height and size that they attain. In all of nature God seems to be teaching us that the worthwhile things are done little by little.
We turn to our Bibles and learn the same lesson. Adam and Eve were in a fortunate position but they wanted to take the short cut and ate of the fruit in hopes of becoming wise.
Moses was ready to deliver the Israelites when he was forty but God taught him patience and humility as a sheep herder for forty more years before God felt that he was ready. By this time Moses was much wiser and not as eager as he had been when he slew the Egyptian.
We all seem to want to run before we can walk and our hardest falls come when we are unprepared for the task we have set out to accomplish.
We need to remember that Jesus spent thirty years preparing for three and one half years ministry and he was the Son of God. This age is particularly plagued with the fast pace of life and we find ourselves teaching when we should be listening and writing when we should be reading.
There is no substitute for experience and we get experience only one day at a time.
God is still visiting the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name and he is doing it little by little. “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” said the Lord through Isaiah. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, “Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” Isa. 28:10,16.
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was as a grain of mustard seed, a great kingdom from a small beginning and God is calling and preparing the saints from that kingdom from all ages, little by little.
We must not be too impatient or too proud to do little tasks and take short steps – too often we want to wait and do nothing until we can do something spectacular. Instead we are wise if we will only remember that the greatest things done on earth have been done little by little.
Bro Bob Lloyd (USA)
