Good Things Come In Small Packages

(A women's group devotional)

Good things come in small packages. I’ll prove it to you. (Produce ring box and pause.) What comes to mind when you see this? What’s the realm of the possible inside? A promise? A new life? A new name?

I want to invite you into the realm of the small and what possibility might lay inside for you.

In mid-September, my pastor's wife taught alongside her husband in church and stepped into the role of the widow with the two mites. She described her fear and trembling, the belief that she might be judged as she dropped all that she had into the temple treasury. Two tiny plinks. Her inner thoughts laid bare her self-judgement and an incorrect valuation of both herself and her sacrifice. And yet The One named Faithful and True, The King of All Kings that will someday come and take us home… He more than noticed her courageous act of faith.

This wasn’t the first time the Godhead had said something on the matter of small things.

A bit of dust and a single breath. A rib. An empty womb. A single lamb. Flakes of manna. A mustard seed. A flower in a field. A sparrow. A seed sown on rocky soil. A missing coin. A single lost sheep. A few fish and a couple loaves of bread. Children. Acts of kindness as simple as a glass of water. A piece of bread. A little wine. Good things come in small packages.

Nothing is missed by the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Even when we are in the negative, with nothing to give even in prayer, He more than notices our meager offering. And this Gentleman steps forward to honor and accept it, and will provide the Holy Spirit, to fill in the gap and intercede for us (Romans 8:26-27).

When Jesus points out to His disciples the widow’s act of faith, it also wasn’t the first time He paid attention to the needs of a daughter. Our hearts hold things that are dear to Him. Good things come in small packages.

Each woman mentioned in the bible, every one of them, is poignantly singled out and just enough of their life is laid bare for us to witness and identify with them, all these many years later. Look around the room. The lady sitting next to you could be Rachel, Leah, Bathsheba, Ruth, Mara, Hannah, the Samaritan woman at the well, Lydia, or another honored woman. Whatever is going on in her life, you can bet everything on the fact that God sees what is going on in her heart, hidden from the world, and He is with her.

If you showed up today feeling like you are in the in between, needing divine intervention… or at least a glimmer of promise, you are in good company. The Ruth in here is laying empty handed in the dark at God’s feet, hoping He has come to redeem a dire situation. Mara has white-knuckled it through grief and has stared death straight in the face and even though there’s pain, the tears are now simply… dry. Hannah’s womb could still be in the waiting room of aching emptiness, or now pregnant with anxiety of not yet being full term, or she could be on this side of waiting – still remembering those years of longing, with brand-new worries burdening her heart. And of course, there’s a Leah or a Samaritan woman whose heart is worn thin from rejection. Rachel, Leah, and Bathsheba… oh ladies, we’ve all been in their shoes one way or another, haven’t we?

Each one of us lives our lives with our polite faces on while we privately grip our two mites or our single mustard seed in the privacy of our hearts. Each version of the story of the tiny thing we are holding is gut-wrenching, but ladies these small things we cling to are eternally quite beautiful. The widow at the temple had no idea that God decided to be born years earlier and was sitting RIGHT THERE, instead of residing behind a thick veil inside a room she would never enter in that very same temple. But He had her in mind all along, likely excited to see her, knowing she would be there. Knowing of her trust in Him, getting to see it first-hand.

Close your eyes. What of you? Who is like you in the Bible? What is the need you are holding in your heart? He sees it, for He is there in your heart. What is the small thing you are trusting Him with sacrificially? He sees that, too.

Take this moment and meet with your Savior. Allow Him to take your tiny little bit of trust that you are white-knuckling, your humble scrap of an offering, and what you think is a hot mess of a life… and know that He sees you sitting there, right as rain. He sees His daughter, the one that He loves so deeply and knows that good things come in small packages.