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We recently heard
someone quote an old saying which says, ”The greatest things
done on earth have been done little by little.”
When we refer to
things done on earth we naturally are speaking of the deeds
of man and not the wonders of God. There is quite a lesson
to learn from this fact of doing great things little by little.
In the vast world in which we live today, everyone wants to
take the short cuts to the top. Few are willing to do things
little by little and yet when we study nature we see that
God teaches us that great things are done slowly.
The giant Sequoia trees, the oldest living things in the world,
grow exceedingly slowly but look at the height and size which
they attain.
In all of nature, God seems to be teaching us that the worthwhile
things are done little by little.
We turn to our
Bibles and we learn the same lesson. Adam and Eve were in
a fortunate position but they wanted to take the short cut
and ate of the fruit in hopes of becoming wise.
Moses was ready to deliver the Israelites when he was forty
but God taught him patience and humility as a sheep herder
for forty more years before God felt he was ready and by this
time Moses was much wiser and not as eager as he had been
when he slew the Egyptian.
We all seem to want to run before we can walk and our hardest
falls come when we are unprepared for the task we have set
out to accomplish. We need to remember that Jesus spent thirty
years preparing for three and one half years ministry and
he was the son of God.
This age is particularly plagued with the fast pace of life
and we find ourselves teaching when we should be listening
and writing when we should be reading.
There is no substitute
for experience and we get experience only one day at a time.
God is still visiting the Gentiles, to take out of them a
people for His name and he is doing it little by little.
”For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line
upon line, line upon line, here a little, and there a little:”
said the Lord through Isaiah. Therefore thus saith the Lord
God, ”Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried
stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that
believeth shall not make haste.” Isa. 28: 10, 16.
Jesus taught that
the kingdom of God was as a grain of mustard seed, a great
kingdom from a small beginning and God is calling and preparing
the saints for that kingdom from all the ages little by little.
We must not be too impatient or too proud to do little tasks
and take short steps – too often we want to wait and do nothing
until we can do something spectacular. Instead we are wise
if we will only remember that the greatest things done on
earth have been done little by little.
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