You drank a glass of water before the coffee this morning. You walked to the end of the road and back after supper, once. You read one verse in the car line and didn't get to the second before the bell rang.
Nobody noticed. You didn't count it either. By bedtime it was already filed under "not enough."
Here's the good news I don't think you let yourself believe: God does not despise small beginnings, and He'd like you to stop despising yours. There's a verse in the Bible written to people who looked at something small and called it nothing, and God told them they had it wrong.
Do not despise small beginnings: where the words come from
After the exile in Babylon, a small group of God's people came home to Jerusalem. The temple Solomon built was gone. So they started over, with a foundation.
The book of Ezra tells what happened the day that foundation was laid. Many of the people shouted for joy. But the old men, the ones who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice. The new one looked so small next to what they'd known. Ezra says the shouting and the weeping got so mixed together that nobody could tell one sound from the other.
Then the work stalled for years. The foundation sat there looking like a failure.
So God sent the prophet Zechariah to Zerubbabel, the man in charge of rebuilding, with this:
"For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth." (Zechariah 4:10)
A plummet is a plumb line, a string with a weight on the end that a builder holds against a wall to make sure it's going up straight. You only need one when the building is actually happening.
So God is saying: the same people who sneered at the small start are going to be glad when they see that line in Zerubbabel's hand. And the eyes of the LORD, the ones that run to and fro through the whole earth, are on it. On one small wall. In one small city. Going up one stone at a time.
For the women who remember the first temple
I think a lot of us are the old men at that foundation.
We remember who we were at thirty. How much we carried, how fast we moved, how big our plans used to be. So when we start again with something small, it feels like an insult. We look at a ten-minute walk and remember the 5K. We look at one verse and remember the year we read the whole Bible through.
And we weep, quietly, over a foundation God is happy with.
One woman on our busy-seasons form wrote, "I never seem to stick to any program." Another said, "I just forget and feel like a failure." I don't think either one is lazy. I think they're measuring a new foundation against an old temple.
Why small is good news
Here's what changes when you believe that verse.
God's eyes run through the whole earth, and they stop on a plumb line in one man's hand. That means He sees the glass of water. He sees the walk to the end of the road. He isn't grading it against the woman you were at thirty. He's watching the wall go up straight.
Small things are also the things you can keep. A big plan collapses the first week the holidays get busy. A small one gets done again tomorrow. And the next day. That's how walls go up.
This is the kind of next step we'll spend an evening on together before the holidays: Make Room for You, Thursday, Nov 12, 7:00 to 8:30 PM at Meades Branch Freewill Baptist Church in Louisa. It's free, and nobody will hand you a twelve-step plan.
What it looks like this week
Tonight, on the any small slip of paper, envelope, receipt, write down three small things you did this week that nobody saw.
Then thank God for each one by name. Not "help me do more." Just: thank You for the water. Thank You for the walk. Thank You for the verse in the car line.
Tuck the paper in your Bible. Next week, add three more. In a month you'll have a stack of proof that the wall is going up.
The foundation looks small. The line is in His hand. And He is glad about it.
If you'd like to sit with other women who are starting small on purpose, come Thursday, Nov 12. The coffee bar opens at 6:30, and the Joy Jar, door prizes and a photo booth are waiting, along with a room full of women who'll cheer for small things with you. Save your seat: aligned-purpose-co.com/make-room-for-you.
