“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
Everyone loves a great movie. I love action films and mysteries. In the past 20 years, we have seen more and more Christian based films. These have become my ultimate favorites I think. They strike a cord in me that a good God does care for his children and he never leaves them nor forsakes them. Now, the film lasts about 2 hours. In those 2 hours, we see a life or a time span that includes months or even years. I also like to read the Bible and get into the stories of the Bible that span months and even years. Moses, Abraham, Joshua, and so many more. We get to read their lives from beginning to end in the time it takes us to watch a movie.
When God brought Israel out of Egypt he told them to keep telling the stories of how God moved and brought them out of slavery into a land flowing with milk and honey. The first generation out of slavery kept this fresh on their minds, but as life goes on and the further removed from the actual event, the more dim it becomes. They did not have a Bible to read, they only had what they remembered and what had been passed down to them at story time.
When you read the books of the Chronicles and Kings, the people of Israel continually did evil in the sight of the Lord and God would have to snap them back to reality time and time again. We read about this in a matter of hours but it actually happened over many years, decades even.
Isaiah is writing down what God is saying to His people. In the verse above the Lord is referring to Jesus and how He will be a light to Gentiles and the salvation of the Lord will reach the ends of the earth. The verse starts with the phrase “it is too small a thing for you.” In my life, in the moment of despair, it is easy to think that this God is too small because where is He right now when I need Him. This is why God instructed Moses to make sure they tell the stories of what God did in Egypt and how He moved because we tend to forget those things in the middle of struggles.
Raise your hand if you have ever told someone, “can you just focus on the issue right now!” That is where most of us live, in the “right now.” Now is most pressing. Now is the focus. Now is all we can wrap our minds around. Now, now, now, now!
Today, take some time to reflect on when God moved in your life. Make a personal movie out of it. Start out when things were enslaving you and tell someone the great things God did to bring you out.
Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking God is too small. We go there when we focus on the “now’s” of life. Your life is a walking testimony of God moving. He told Isaiah, in the verse above, that just gathering Israel back together was too small of a task. Yep, that is right, too small of a task. He was focused on the whole picture. God is bigger than you think and he will do more than you will could ever ask, think, or imagine.
Prayer: Father, this life tends to have us focused on the nasty now and now. Your Word tells us to have a heavenly perspective, to focus on the things above and to walk by faith and not by sight. We should be a walking, talking billboard for the works of the Lord in our past and present, telling everyone how the Lord has been showing up in our lives. I pray that we see your hand on us and recognize it. I pray that we will ultimately say “not my will but yours be done.” In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Let It Go 
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