This week has been challenging – if you’ve read my recent posts, you’ll know that. But I don’t apologise for that. If David could write psalms about despair, abandonment, and loneliness, then I think it’s okay for me to write about exhaustion and overwhelm. God created us with emotions, and being honest with Him about how we feel is important. But I also knew I didn’t want to stay in that place.
Today, as I reflected on what to write, I realised I needed to remind myself that not everything had been bad. The difficult moments stood out, but there were also things to be thankful for (go read Wednesday’s post on gratitude). And in the middle of that reflection, I was reminded of a quote from a book I read recently. A friend of mine lent me The Christian Priest Today by Michael Ramsay, and one sentence struck a chord with me:
‘The glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man, the one woman, the one child are of infinite worth to God.’
Reading this was a reminder I needed. So much of what I do is for the few – the church I serve is small, my team at work is small, and I try to make time for individuals in need. In a world that often measures success in numbers, even within the church, these words from a former Archbishop of Canterbury reassured me that this work still matters.
Looking back over this week, I didn’t change the world (not a regular occurrence, I admit). But I know I made time for individuals. I know I offered a listening ear, a hug, or just a smile to someone each day. And those are still worthwhile things. Jesus heard a blind beggar on the side of the road call out to him and stopped and made time to listen. (Of course, Jesus also gave him his sight back, a level of impact I didn’t quite achieve this week!) He saw a passing funeral procession of a widow burying her son and raised the son from the dead, even though he had never met this widow from Nairn. He stopped his teaching when a paralysed man was dropped through the ceiling. When a Syrophoenician woman followed, calling for help, he stopped and talked to her. Time and again, Jesus shows his care for ‘the one.’
And another way to look at that: I am the individual, the one who is of infinite worth to God. And so are you. So if you find you’ve had a tough week, don’t worry. You are still of infinite worth to God.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 