Small Graces

Woke up this morning feeling sad and lonely.

We all get that way sometimes, and there's no real reason for it.  We can gaze at our lives in many different ways.  We could look at our successes, we could look at our failures, we could see how rewarding our relationships are or we could recognize that our relationships are really meaningless.  We could see how our work has done something important, or note that no one really appreciates the work we've done.

The funny thing is how our mood so often colors our lives.

I wonder how God feels about His life, His work.

Does He wake up some mornings and say, "No one really cares about me.  For all the praise I get, almost none of them really care about me outside of being in a group of worshipers.  Few are grateful, and for those who are, they often thank me for things I didn't do, and ignore the hard work I did put into their lives.  Believers fight tooth and nail over doctrine I never taught and ignore the basic principles I want them to live by."

I'll bet most of the time, he avoids such depressing thoughts because they really aren't helpful. Such thoughts make us depressed or angry, but I'll bet God recognizes that it's best to focus on the small good instead of the large, ignorant populations that disrespect Him though apathy or carelessness.

Perhaps that's why Jesus likes to look at the small things that change reality.  The things that seems so insignificant to sweeps of history, but are so full of God's grace.

The sisters whose brother had died.
The boy who returns to his father.
The servant who obeys his master.
The woman with non-stop bleeding.
The embezzler who impresses his boss.
The woman who lost a coin.
The man who finds treasure in a field.
The woman whose son died.

Small people.  In the scheme of world events, pretty unimportant.  But these are the small things God wants us to notice.  Not the everyday negativity, not the horrors of the world.  But the small graces that make all the differences.