“Why do you turn away from me?” Job 13:24

Sitting glaring into a crackling fire always makes me feel at peace.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a real fireplace in my house or a wood burner but I find having a crackling fire in 4K still does the trick. There’s something about the constancy of the burning flames that calms my worries and fears. Last week I was chatting to someone at church and actually caught myself saying to them, “Well, all we can do now is pray and trust God”. What??? This is something I think we say a lot – or is it just me? ALL we can do…well actually that is always ALL we can do. For some reason we feel this compelling desire to help God to do His job and to try and control outcomes. Then when we’ve exhausted our resources we finally let go and allow Him to move and work. Thinking about it in this moment it’s quite amusing – we, who are weak and dependant on a God who has all power to change any situation and has an amazing plan for our lives, for some reason behave as if we can do better and don’t surrender and allow Him to work.

This year I’m determined to read the Bible in One Year and I’m using Nicky Gumbel’s brilliant app to do so. A short while ago the OT readings were in Job. I don’t think any of us will ever fully understand why God allowed the things to happen to Job that took place in his life but sitting here looking into this crackling fire, it makes me think how constant He is in our lives. How terrible it would be to lose my family; to lose all my possessions; to be covered in incredibly painful sores as he was…but not only that…to have to go through it all without the intimacy of God’s presence. That was the most painful part for Job. Of course, eventually everything was restored to Job far more than before but as he was walking through the valley he must have felt so helpless.

Today, let’s not take for granted the constancy of our Father’s love and provision for us. No matter what turmoil we are in, His unending love burns and crackles for us…the flames of His compassion and the roar of His power to carry us and heal every pain never dies down – never grows cold. Trusting in the steady, safe and sureness of this should be our full focus. Knowing that when we rest in Him in surrender He takes care of everything. There’s nowhere His love and power can’t reach. He plans our very steps and walks with us as we take each one.

Remember today, He has gone before you and He is with you. Trust in the constancy of His love and support – He’s got you and He will never let you go.

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin”

Zechariah 4:10

Anyone who has met me in person will know I am not the tallest person around…in fact, though I have a rather loud voice, I’m only a mere 4ft 11. Throughout my life, I’ve often felt like there are far more drawbacks to being small than gains…not being able to see at events; dreading anyone sitting in front of me at the cinema, not being able to reach things in the supermarket (even yesterday!); always being called ‘cute’ at secondary school (you might think ‘Aw’ but when you’re trying to make your mark on the world it’s not helpful!); people thinking I was always younger than I actually was (I would welcome this one now! :D). Recently though, God has been teaching me to embrace my ‘smallness’. Not just height-wise (though that is part of my uniqueness), but who I am – me – a normal, down-to-earth person.

We spend so much of our lives wishing we were someone else or feeling the pressure to become ‘someone’. All the while God desires that you be ‘you’! There’s only one ‘you’ and never will be again. I encourage you today to make a decision that in 2019 you are going embrace ‘you’. ‘You’ as a friend, parent, child…’You’ designed, loved and cherished by God. Life and love are built one small moment at a time by normal people. God doesn’t need you to succeed by becoming something or someone – He wants to be you to be ‘You’ – the amazing person He created.

If you allow Him to use you as you are in the small moments, He will accomplish great things through you in and through the small moments of your life. I used the picture of The Hobbits at the beginning of this blog because in The Lord of the Rings it isn’t the mighty warriors that overthrow Sauron – it’s the small Hobbits. One tiny step forward at a time, loving and supporting each other, they climb into Mount Doom and destroy the ring of power. Looking at them they look very normal (apart from the hairy feet!) and nothing special, yet the assignment they accomplished was of great importance. I’m sat in a beautiful tea room writing at this moment and I’m surrounded by mothers and daughters, couples and friends happily drinking tea and eating together – sharing life…Normal people but each with a special assignment of sowing into each other’s lives.

Embrace your smallness – be You! Make the most of life’s moments and watch how God uses you to sow into people’s lives. I once read a book about a woman who experienced heaven for a few moments. She said she expected to see all her relatives and friends that she’d lost waiting there for her but instead she saw streams of connection where she’d shared life and God’s love with people and how that in turn had affected others. The streams went on and on and she was blown away by how God had used her small moments of connection and commitment.

The scripture I quoted at the beginning refers to the rebuilding of the Temple, which was built one brick at a time. Keep building those bricks of life and relationship and embrace your uniqueness today and every day.