Late one Saturday a few years ago I returned to Montgomery from North Carolina. It had been a busy week with speaking twice a day to 700 Y.M. C. A. high school students, and commuting about 100 miles round trip to Lake Junaluska twice a day to preach at the Candler Camp Meeting. After that 7-hour drive home on Saturday, I walked into the house and the house was hot!
I checked the thermostat on the air conditioner, and it was in its normal place – the air conditioner was just not working. After a long hot trip, a hot house doesn’t help your mood a whole lot.
When I was finally able to get someone to come out and look at the air conditioner, the man checked it out and looked at me and smiled. He said, “You are not going to believe what’s wrong with your air conditioner.” He pointed to a little twig about an inch long that had fallen into the fan and jammed the fan blade against the casing of the air conditioner. The little twig must have fallen precisely into the one place that would cripple the whole air conditioner. All he had to do was take a screwdriver and release the fan blade.
I looked at that little bitty twig (it was now an expensive twig). You would hardly see it if it were lying on the ground. But that little twig got into the one place that would shut down all the cool air from our house.
How many times do we let little things get into our spiritual life and play havoc? We might think that because something is small, that it is insignificant. Little things in the wrong places can mess up and entire operation. Just observe what happens when a little bit of sand gets into the carburetor of a car.
Conversely, little things can carry a lot of positive influence. Emerson once said that the creation of a thousand forests is in one small acorn. Jesus talked a lot about the salt in food and the leaven in a loaf. One invitation to attend church from you to someone might make all the difference in their lives.
You might feel insignificant because you are the only Christian in your office, or the only Christian in your family, or the only Christian in your circle of friends. Don’t ever forget the power that one witness can make!
Pay careful attention to the little things in your life. An accumulation of the little things ultimately makes the big things!
[The above is an excerpt found on page 73 from the book Extra Effort by John Ed Mathison. Extra Effort is available through the John Ed Mathison Leadership Ministries.]
