Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Studies Blog

Growing smaller.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

It's the anti-Prayer of Jabez. It's not seeing growth and success through growing and getting bigger, but by getting smaller. Sounds backwards, right?

A successful organization gets bigger. A church should get bigger. More. More. Our definition of all things good somewhere includes the idea of "growth."

A frustration I felt in my first year's of involvement in Nicaragua was that I couldn't seem to do much good. I could do a little good, but not much good. It was overwhelming, all the needs. I -- and others in my group -- couldn't meet them all. It was easy to think that, if we couldn't help everyone, we couldn't help anyone. Too much territory to cover! I have gotten past that, somewhat, into seeing the value of taking what little money I have and helping a few people and really loving them and making it more about sharing what's God's money, anyway, not worrying if that money could be "better used" for "the greater good" and for "more people."

On page 319 of Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an ordinary radical*, he makes a statement that would confuse most of American Christianity, which has been thoroughly Americanized into "bigger is better" thinking. Claiborne takes a different turn:

God's kingdom grows smaller and smaller as it takes over the world.

He then goes on to quote Mother Teresa:

We can do not great things, only small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it.

No, I can't help them all, and trying to do so will only leave me angry and frustrated and with an excuse to quit helping at all.

But I can help one.

It might not seem to matter, in the larger picture, if one life is made slightly better when thousands around are in misery. But...it matters to that one.

Just one, maybe. That's what God has placed in my path, and I need to be faithful in just that one. Maybe God needs to see that I'm faithful in that before anything else. Maybe he wants me to understand that there's no shortage of power and money in His grasp and that He isn't asking me to think I'm a little god with a wallet to solve lots of problems and set out to change the entire world.

It goes against our idea of "wise use of resources", that we should make our dollar go as far as we can to help as many as we can, for that seems fair and wise and evidence of a good steward. And, it helps us cover that enlarged territory we think we've been given.

I don't know. Start small. Learn to love and trust and work and be satisfied and confident in the small. If we can't do that, we certainly aren't ready to work big.

Just start with one. Make a difference in that one life. It matters very much.

* I highly recommend that you go out and buy that book. It'll ruin your life as you now know it, and for the better.

Note: This post was pre-written and published as scheduled. Read more about this here.

Labels: christianity, church, missions