God gently and persistently tried to make me see that I was beginning at the wrong end, but to no avail . . . until this past week. It’s nothing that I read, or a message that I listened to. I simply took time to sit quietly and think about my life, past, present and future. It’s amazing what doing what God intended for us to do with our minds can accomplish! For me, it resulted in a much-needed change of focus.

In dreaming of doing the big hard things I had forgotten that everything begins with being found faithful in the small hard things – which often aren’t so very small at all. The small things, after all, lay the foundation for our success in the big things. I viewed the small hard things as daily, monotonous chores that I am expected and supposed to do; in which God is often the only one to notice my being faithful – and I wanted people to notice how faithful and Christ-like I was! As I’ve found, it often is monotonous and my family most likely will not cheer for me when I willingly spend quality time with them every day. That’s what I’m supposed to do! But I am building a character, and a future, no matter who notices.

In dreaming of the big hard things I was also forgetting that God is the Author of my life story. The way I saw it (although I never would have said so), I would plan the rest of my life, inform God as to what I had decided, He would find my plans all “very good,” bless them, and proceed to work out the fine details to make these things happen. After all, didn’t He want me be to be useful and fulfilled? He did, and still does. He knew what did not. He saw everything I refused to see. Now I see it too.

“Not what I will, not what I desire to be – but to see Your sovereign plan perfected in me.”

Keep a single eye soldiers!

In Christ…

What small thing am I doing? I am currently working on being patient with my 5 younger siblings. They can get pretty annoying and want lots of attention so my focus is to daily interact with them more so my mom can get things done, and to build deeper relationships with them. I’ve had younger siblings most of my life and though they do get agrivating, they really are a blessing. My modivator: We find it much more enjoyable spending the majority of our ‘free time’ time with each other than taking a half hour to drive into town to meet with friends. Count on it…building good relationships with your family is the best thing (besides a relationship with God!). I also am working on having a good attitude towards dilligence in hard (homeschool) highschool classes, learning Beethoven Concertos, and non-stop cooking, cleaning, and taking care of siblings with my older sister and my mom (who are very good examples to me). It’s hard, but it’s fun…and worth it! It is difficult to do alot of things 100%, but who are we doing it for? We are doing it for someone who has created us to bring Him glory and honor and who’s love and blessings continually flow over us…and He deserves our absolute best. God bless–and keep up the good work on small hard things!