“Sometimes, little things make a big difference...”
― Nino Varsimashvili
This quote by Nino really reflected in my life yesterday as I walked home. They used to call Kenya the nation of small things once. But I have come to realize that it is small things that make the largest difference. The word you thought went unscathing is the one that hurt your loved one the most. So today, as much as I’d hoped that this would not be a relationship blog, I will talk about small things in a relationship.
Yes, I mean the hugs and small touches and all that’s contained in the books having the five languages of love, and probably some other smaller things contained in other books containing other things, such as hurt and strife and jealousy. First of all, all these are different sides of a coin. If one could notice the one side they are leaning on, they would realize it takes a second to flip the coin and live on the other side. But thank God for forgiveness. Maybe it will take more than a second for your loved one to roll over.
Isaiah 7:13 – is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?
I see a man ask how people will take God seriously, yet so easily offend others. Yesterday, we were speaking with someone special and we happened upon something interesting – small words we said in the presence of each other thinking they were small, but having a large impact.
As brethren, we are expected by God to walk in love. And sometimes, walking in love is not as easy as it sounds. I see Paul give advice to a certain church that love would go to the extents of what you eat to give way for your brother’s faith to grow. A relationship that does not grow your relationship with God, or your understanding of his principles, will most certainly be doomed. Because at the end of the day, all your relationship will go only as far as your relationship with God goes. So are you okay with wearing God? You blame him for everything when it goes wrong? You ask him why he’s inflicting you with sickness and disease? Or why he took your loved one? Or why you don’t have a job yet? Or perhaps it’s why your girlfriend left you? And perhaps after you’re done quarreling him, you go back to comfort yourself with the same word that all things happen for good?
Perhaps it’s time you noticed that there are some small things that you are doing that are having a large impact in your life. It is how you interact with your heavenly Father that will determine how you will interact with others. If you determined that you served a father of love, who has “good plans for you; a plan with a hope and for a great future”, then you will understand it is not his work that has caused the misfortune in our life.
The Lord is our owner, and I saw him in Mathew 13:27 and the servants said to him, “Master, didn’t you plant good seeds [in the field of your people]? How is it then that there are weeds?” and he said, “an enemy has done this”. So we must realize that the enemy is always walking around looking for someone to devour. And if your partner is the most effective tool to do this work, the enemy will do this. I casually said that my friend who had a job had her life together, completely oblivious of the memory that my loved one had been looking for a job for the past two months. I didn’t even realize when someone became angry – an enemy did it!
Now we must really be careful of small things, because it is through small things that the enemy comes through. You’re there, meaning something completely innocent – like saying it’s nice to have a job – and then the enemy goes and works on someone to show them that you think they’re not organized in life. And the relationship can literally go to hell after that. It is the small foxes that spoil the vineyard, no?
Small things in a relationship can mean the beginning of a flourishing relationship, or the drought that destroys such a relationship. Isn’t it a small thing that you’re married and having a casual fling with someone at the office? Proverbs 6:23-29 tells us of a young man who thought it was a small thing to have that casual fling. His end was destruction. And so I realize that foolishness is often in small things. It’s that invitation of that crush to your room that causes one to mess up their walk with God. It is that casual walk into the club that finds a gospel worshipper getting themselves in compromising situations. It is all about small things most of the time. Isn’t it a small thing that a child would sneer at their mother for telling them to come home earlier next time? Yet at disaster, it becomes a big thing.
2 Peter 1:13 – yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you…
Reminding ourselves so long as we are in our bodies is the only such remedy to such an inconsistency in ourselves. We must remember that all things godly are being resisted by the enemy, including our relationships. Wasn’t it a small thing for Jesus to turn stone into bread as he turned water into wine? Yet often, some small things are a trap of the enemy to destroy the relationships that God has planned so well for us.
And so yesterday, I learned – all small things carry their big significance. Perhaps, sometime I will talk about a small thing called forgiveness.
Isaac Ng'ang'a 