Does it matter?

Driving through the summer-browned countryside of Romania, I heard one woman on my holiday Bible school team ask another, ‘What is God teaching you this week?’ 

That question clanged around my mind for several days. What was God teaching me? Surely God had brought me to Romania to show me some life-altering truth. Yet among all the craft work and singing at meetings where most of the participants could not understand me, I couldn’t see any lesson for me or any impact I may have had on them. Until Wednesday. 

On Wednesday, a little girl handed me a daisy and a picture of rabbits and butterflies. Through a translator, her mother said, ‘She comes to the Bible school because of you. She thinks you have a nice smile and that you sing pretty.’ My heart melted, and in my heart God whispered, ‘There’s your lesson.’ When we go on mission trips, serve at soup kitchens or teach Sunday school for years on end, we might wonder if what we do matters. But that daisy and rabbit picture reminded me that when we obey God in the seemingly small work, he expands its impact in ways we could never imagine. Our call is to do the work.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, help us take delight in doing the work you have given us to do, no matter how small it seems. May all we do bless others. Amen