We Must Stop and Recall, His Favorite Things Are Often Small

We just talked about it again, trudging through the Christmas tree farm the other day.

Our older two, two decades and more, a boyfriend, my ten and a five-year-old, in toe.

Each year, we bring someone different. Is that because they need to know the story too?

It was year two of marriage. I remember it well. An infant lie quiet, looking at the lights, rice and eggs our staple because we refused to go on welfare.

And we couldn’t afford a tree. 

Then, we got news one day, my husband’s aunt was cleaning her property, and offered us one of the “trees” she’d been cutting.

Of course, we said, “yes”, for how could we not display to our son a tree on his very first Christmas?

When the tree came, it was small. No, not small. It actually was more like a branch that fell off the top of an evergreen in a windstorm.

It was naked, barren, with a flimsy truck, and all that you could spot was just a few limbs dangling.

Yet, we were grateful, thankful, and somewhat enamored.

We called that second tree, our, “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree; staring at it in the evenings, and humble and grateful for another persons generosity.

Others probably saw it as pathetic, but we hung some leftover bulbs we found from my husband’s sisters abandoned apartment on that tree, and looked at it gloriously…

It was our very own. And every beggar should truly learn to be grateful.

We were, for the first Christmas ever, a full blown family, baby and all. Quiet and unseen in our old rented house, looking over the water.

A family God created, a home that was our own, a small tree that was enough to remind us of our love and God’s promise…

Heaven truly does love humble and small beginnings.

I ran across it on Instagram this morning, a quote from Sarah Koontz, “Bigger and better in God’s eyes is often small and insignificant in the world’s eyes.”

We truly do possess a somewhat strange and upside-down gospel.

And, I am not going to lie, I see “big” with everything in me. Half the time I feel like I am looking down on life in generalities and broad understandings…

Yet, left on my own, I can miss what God sees….the one, the lost, the unseen, the forgotten.

And let’s face it, in a world of big portions, great names, and large living…It can be easy to miss the beauty in the humble, small, and insignificant.

But Jesus came small.

He found a quiet corner, in an unseen manger, and plotted and planned his entry there.

Jesus came as a babe, quiet in a manger, without the world awe-ing, and posting on social media about Him. And yet, that was no accident. Shouldn’t we also value humble beginnings?

In a world where we pride ourselves on numbers and attendance, followings, and seats filled….

Isn’t it curious that Jesus didn’t contest being small and innocent, weak and vulnerable, unseen and not looking for platforms in this world?

And yet, aren’t we called to mirror His image?

• Have we forgotten the greatest, shall be the servant? (Luke 9:48)
• The first shall be last, the last shall be first? (Matt 19:30)
• Do we take scripture literally, when it says, “Don’t despise humble beginnings”? (Zec. 4:10)
• Have we forgotten the mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds…promises to produce great things? (Luke 17:6)

Or are we too caught up, in our ADD and OCD society, racing after large, despite the beauty of being quiet and forgotten?

The morning is still, here in my kitchen nook, looking over five acres, knowing a very large tree was just cut, lights on in the other room.

No labor was in this purchase, no story, or great significance was in this tree that sits purchased and cut down, for all to see…

And yet, that tree, that Charlie Brown Tree keeps coming to my mind with fond memories. It’s story dances upon my lips.

• And wasn’t it the small children Jesus welcomed, those the disciples shoo’d away?
• The treasure in the field God told us to sell all we have for? (Matt 13:44)
• Isn’t He the pearl of great price we pursue and are called to leave all for? (Matt 13:45-46)

And yet, we gather “wheat” in storehouses, and tare down our worlds to build bigger ones…to hold more “stuff”…

As if accumulating can satisfy our internal yearnings. (Luke 12:18)

We live large, when everything about Him was small and seemed insignificant.

And I wonder if our heavenly inheritance isn’t measured by how much we get, but by how much we give away.

• Can we ever have enough space, to store the stuff things that never quite make us feel great, or whole?
• And isn’t it only when we give our hearts, confess our weakness, He makes us strong, and takes us to places we never dreamed of?
• And that baby in a basket, floating down a river, wasn’t He small? Didn’t He seem insignificant at the time? Yet, He grew up and freed a nation, lead God’s people out from slavery in Egypt…

Not because He thought himself capable, but because He knew His inadequacy, and yet trusted God’s supremacy. Shouldn’t we follow suit?

Scripture reminds us, “God uses the foolish things of the world to confoundthe proud.” (1 Cor. 1:27)

He rarely leads loud and proud, those puffed up in and of themselves, those who were trained from a child to be great and conquer the world…

I think about our Charlie Brown tree…

Peter who fixed His eyes on Jesus and was able to walk on water. And how He uses those who know they are incapable, because then He gets all the glory.

I don’t think there isn’t a year that passes, that my husband I don’t have a few laughs over that scrawny “tree” we dragged in that second year….

The one we hardly had any lights to cover….

But at the same time, over two decades later, we have seen over and over God use those others most might be surprised by; the widow, the orphan, the fatherless, the poor, the once prostitute, or the tax collector.

So, we know there’s hope for us.

“Bigger and better in God’s eyes is often small and insignificant in the world’s eyes.” ~ Sarah Koontz

Yes, great things start small. God give us eyes to see what others don’t.

The smaller the gift, the greater the hope.

Yes, maybe great things, really do come in small packages.

And then, there is that baby….lying in a manger…

(Linking with Lyli)