The Little Things

Some memories are stored in my mind's eye like a movie. I can see everything around me. I can remember all of the subtle details, even details that have no importance. For some reason, this is one of those memories.

When I was a business owner, it always seemed like it was pay day. Of course it wasn't always pay day, but it was one of those tasks that required my attention in many different ways. The most important thing I needed to know was if there was enough money in the payroll account. Some months were smoother than others. I don't remember any of those. It was the times when things were running a little too tight for my comfort level that I remember best. But as the old saying goes...

God is never late, but seldom early.

Waiting often causes me to cling to Him all the more. And I have found Him to be faithful to me in those times, even if it seemed I was down to the last possible moment.

Anyway, this particular incident happened while I was away from the office for the afternoon. I knew today was the last day a check could arrive in time in order to meet payroll. But long before today, I had been bringing my need before the Lord.

Listen, this was before cell phones, or iPads or texting, my friends.

I happened to be close to my father's house and decided I'd stop there to use the phone to call my office to see if the mail had arrived. To find out if the check was there. I explained the situation to my father as I stood by the breakfast bar with the phone in my hand. And I told him I had been praying about my situation. I just remember him telling me that God didn't care about stuff like that. I was wasting my time. I immediately responded with a somewhat hurt but confident, "Oh, yes He does!" I made the phone call and found out the mail had arrived. And the check was in the mail. Of course, I was so encouraged, and so very thankful. No, I don't think that made my father change his mind about wasting my time nor God's for that matter.

When my children were little I would pray a little prayer as I would head out grocery shopping or to run errands and ask the Lord to provide a close parking spot. It was hard sometimes having a very independent two-year old and a very dependent baby. I cannot even tell you how many times I would find a parking spot right in front of the front door. "Thank you, Lord!" I guess I never learned there were some things you just didn't pray for.

Imagine the smile that came upon my face and the flood of joy that filled my heart when I read these words once again:

Childlike confidence makes us pray as none else can. It causes a man to pray for great things that he would never have asked for if he had not learned this confidence. It also causes him to pray for little things that many people are afraid to ask for, because they have not yet felt toward God the confidence of children. I have often felt that it requires more confidence in God to pray to Him about a little thing than about great things. We imagine that our great things are somehow worthy of God's attention, though in truth they are little enough to Him. And then we think that our little things must be so insignificant that it is an insult to bring them before Him. We need to realize that what is very important to a child may be very small to his parent, and yet the parent measures the thing not from his own point of view but from the child's. You heard your little boy the other day crying bitterly. The cause of the pain was a splinter in his finger. While you did not call in three surgeons to extract it, the splinter was a great thing to that little sufferer. Standing there with eyes all wet through tears of anguish, it never occurred to that boy that his pain was too small a thing for you to care about. What were mothers and fathers made for but to look after the small concerns of little children? And God our Father is a good father who pities us as fathers pity their children. He counts the stars and calls them all by name, yet He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.

The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life
by Charles Spurgeon

1 John 5:14-15
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Remember to pray for the little things too...