Little Nothings
I always get really excited for the start of the new year. I get excited about putting all the bad behind me and starting fresh. I get excited at the thought of reading more books than I did this past year, even if I never reach my goal. I get excited at the thought of breaking bad habits and creating new ones even if I sometimes don’t follow through. There just seems to be a lot of excitement for me when it comes to the new year. I know I could set a new goal at any point of the year or try a new habit at any point but there is something about the clean new start of a year that gets me to actually try sometimes.
What I find I often do with the goals I set out to have is that I set them really high. As I’ve gotten older I realize I do this in many areas of my life. I want to meet some grand goal that I have set. I want to make a huge impact on not just my neighborhood but the entire world, yes I know it is crazy for me to think I can have a huge impact on the ENTIRE world. For some reason, that is the way I’m wired. Doing the mundane and day to day parts of life can make me feel almost bored at times. It is almost as if I feel I am not doing enough.
Earlier this week I was checking through my emails and I opened one up from a pastor whom I admire. He sends out encouraging emails specifically for men. This one really got me to thinking about my life and how I have grown over the years, although I still have a lot of growing to do.
In the email he mentioned a Carmelite nun by the name of Thérèse Martin. Thérèse became a nun in the late 19th century when she was 15 years old. She died of tuberculosis at the young age of 24. She didn’t live an extravagant life. She lived a simple life in a monastery in a small town in France. Yet Pope St. Pius X called her the greatest paint of modern times. She was canonized as a saint and recognized as a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997. How does a young woman who lived in a small town and lived a simple short life have such an impact as she did?
Thérèse wrote this: "For me to become great is impossible. I must bear with myself and my many imperfections." She described herself as "neither capable or called to great feats of public witness.”
Can you imagine someone in our world having this much awareness of who they are and being okay with it? In our world we see people who have become influencers on Instagram or Tik-Tok. We think why can’t that be me? Or we think that should be me! The truth is most of us won’t have big ministries make a big impact on the world. Yet we can still have an impact. Living our lives where we are. Living where God has placed us and who He has placed us around. Making a small impact in those areas is where most of us have been called to minister. We need to learn to be okay with that.
Thérèse said this as well: "My mortifications consisted in breaking my will, always so ready to impose itself on others, in holding back a reply, in rendering little services without any recognition, in not leaning my back against a support when seated… It was through the practice of these nothings that I prepared myself to become the fiancée of Jesus.”
It was the simple things in life that she used to make an impact on others. She called them ‘nothings’. Little acts that seem so minute that they couldn’t possibly matter. Yet, they do. Those little nothings matter for us as well.
The way we treat our kids when we are having to correct them for the 4000th time.
Not putting others down to make ourselves feel better.
Taking time to pray instead of entertaining yourself with tv, movie, or a game.
Forgiving someone for something you could be mad about.
These all seem like nothing, yet they make an impact no matter how small they are. When small impacts pile together it starts to make a bigger impact. That is how we change the world. Not in some big grand way, but in small simple ways that we can do each and every day. It is just up to us to take the steps to do those small acts. They can be hard to do and can seem like it doesn’t make a big difference if we act one way or the other, but we can’t underestimate how big an impact those small acts can make!
Joel Harper
