It's the Little Things

 It was a beautiful, clear Sunday morning. I had to be at church early because I was singing on the worship team that morning and we were to practice before Sunday school. My drive to church is only about five minutes, and when I was about halfway there, "How Great is Our God" came on the radio. As I pulled into the church parking lot, the chorus was playing. I parked my car, looked up, and saw a bird flying against the clear blue sky, with the sun shining and just a couple of wispy clouds surrounding it. I somehow noticed every detail. The beauty of that bird and the lyrics of the song made worship well up in me so powerfully I couldn't contain it. I turned up the radio, watched that bird, and sang at the top of my lungs. If someone else would have pulled into the parking lot at that moment, they probably would have thought I'd lost it. And it was nothing I would have been able to explain. The greatness of God was just apparent to me in that moment. It was almost as if time froze for those couple of minutes. All because of a little bird.

Most of the time, I'll admit, I don't even notice a bird flying across the sky. In my busyness, I usually park my car, gather the stuff I need, and move on with my day. Especially when I have responsibilities like singing on the worship team or teaching Sunday school, the morning turns into making sure I'm prepared and focusing on what I need to do. But not that morning. That morning, God wanted to remind me that it wasn't about how prepared I was or what I had to do when I got there. He wanted to show me, through something so small as a bird, that the whole purpose of me being there was to worship Him, my Creator. Since that morning, I have tried to find the little ways that God reveals Himself every day. I'm not perfect at it, and some days I forget, but there are so many ways God wants to show Himself to us, and we miss it all the time.

I have found Him in the smallest of small things. One day I missed a step going down into my basement, and it could have been a bad fall, but I somehow stayed on my feet. Another time I was pulling out of my driveway to go to work, and some ice that was covering a little plant was glistening in the sunlight. On yet another day, two rabbits were playfully chasing each other through my neighbor's yard. Not all of these caused the same flood of worship as that bird in the sky, but I recognized God in all of it.

What God taught me through that little bird is that He truly is everywhere all the time. He taught me to slow down and notice the little things. He taught me how to live out Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." It takes a lot of practice, and I'm not perfect at it yet, but I am learning to be still and see God exalted, even in the little things.