God in the Little Things

I think the Old Testament set me up for expecting God in big, flashy moments—the pillar of fire, the parting of water, the dramatic rescue from lions—all of it showing God’s presence writ large across the pages of human history. When I look for God to intervene in my life, there is part of me that hopes it will be just as dramatic; that I will see evidence of miraculous healings or water turned to wine or even a blinding light on a road.

But in the New Testament many of the interventions were quieter and (on the surface) very ordinary. There were people who talked together, walked from place to place, people who touched each other, people who asked questions and ate together, people who sometimes misunderstood each other and failed to see what was most needed at the time.

I wonder sometimes how I can wake up in a despairing mood, wondering why I can’t sense God’s presence when everywhere around me in the tiny, quiet moments, my life is screaming with evidence of his love: sunrise, sunset every single day again, and a bright blue sky overhead; friends to laugh with, chocolate to eat, hot tea to drink; dogs to pet and socks to put on. In a thousand tiny moments of predictable routine God undergirds my doubt with the quiet persistence of his promise.

Where was God today? Not in a booming voice from the sky or a dramatic conversion. God was in the shoes that protected my feet, in the faucet that gave me clean water, in the softness of late-evening light, and in a thousand seemingly little things that I easily could have missed.