(Small watercolor sketch of my grandson Caleb)
While painting this little sketch of my grandson feeding his pony, my mind started hiking down a thinking path about the small things in life. How powerful they are! Little children and creatures can melt our hearts in one fell swoop. Small things can be the catalyst for some great ventures in life.
We are now several weeks into the 2016 New Year which reminds me about all the New Year's resolutions that have, for many, now bitten the dust. Great resolve and good starts kicked off many a plan for change or growth in some area of life. So how are we doing?
May I encourage you in your efforts to stay in the race no matter how wobbly good intentions may have gotten by now? One critical factor to successful follow-through is contained in the word small. Bite-size. Incremental. Moments. So often our goals start off looking like Mt. Everest in scale and practicality suffers. We sputter to a standstill. So try this advise from Proverbs 21:5..."Little by little the diligent make it happen." This small statement has strengthened me to persevere in the chase for many projects or goals.
A couple powerful stories from history come to mind about the effect of small with big results. Many of us are familiar with the David and Goliath encounter. A dangerous but obvious case of the power of small to overcome a large evil threat. No state of the art military equipment there. Just a small young man, 5 small creek stones, a slingshot, and a practiced skill combined with a big faith in the Creator God.
Another event highlighting the small/big ratio is found in John 6:9 dealing with Jesus' miraculous feeding of the 5,000 plus crowd. Fast food joints were still several millennia away. The huge crowd was languishing with hunger in the rural landscape of the Sea of Galilee. In scoping out any available resources to meet this need, the disciple Andrew had found one small boy with his very small lunch of five loaves and two fish. His response to Jesus was typical..."What good is THAT with this huge crowd?" But these resources placed in Christ's hands were enabled to feed the 5,000 plus crowd and come up with twelve baskets of leftovers! Imagine that!! Small resources with an enormously huge impact!!
Another engaging story about the power of small comes from Aesop's Fables. This one continuously works on me to keep at it. I call it The Slow and Steady Factor. Remember the tortoise and the hare in the race and eventually the winner was the tortoise? Strong and helpful truth right there! A number of years ago my son Jacob drew a cartoon for me that I have treasured and keep in my art studio as a reminder of The Slow and Steady Factor:
I love how he portrayed the turtle decked out in sunglasses, whistling while he crawled, and dragging the unwise rabbit along as well.
Over the years I have collected replicas of the turtle as a reminder of the truth that William Dunning expressed..."Steady work is far more productive than superhuman spurts." Here's the hard-shelled reminders from my studio shelf:
To wind up this topic, I'll leave you with a few choice quotes to encourage you to keep in the chase with your projects and goals this year:
"True life is lived when tiny changes occur."
---Leo Tolstoy.
"...action has magic, grace and power in it."
---Goethe.
"Those heights by great men, won and kept,
Were not achieved by sudden flight.
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night."
---Henry W. Longfellow.
"Good and evil both increase at compound interest.
That is why the little decisions you and I make every day
are of such infinite importance.
The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which,
a few months later,
you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of."
---C. S. Lewis.
(emphasis in bold print is mine)
Here's a sneak peak at what is new on my easel in my slow and steady endeavors:
Live bravely and beautifully!
No comments:
Post a Comment