Little Is Much

Today, I participated in a Day of Service with other students from Asbury Theological Seminary. When I got to our service project site this morning, I didn't really know what to expect. I knew that we would be doing some cleaning, but it was morning, and I felt very energetic and ready to work. When I walked into the dormitory that we were going to clean, my heart dropped. I looked around at the peeling paint, dust, and grime, and I wondered how we would make that space seem livable. Today I learned how much God can do with insurmountable tasks.


As our group members chose jobs to do and disappeared into various rooms, I was left alone in the foyer. Directly in front of me, there was a vacant bathroom. I picked up a box of cleaning supplies, found some gloves, and walked in. At first, my task seemed hopeless. I was only one person and that was a really big, really dirty bathroom. There were four toilets, four sinks, four showers, and a lot of grime. I peered down into the toilets and realized that they needed to soak, so I applied the toilet bowl cleaner and began cleaning the sinks. 

As I so often do while I am cleaning my own home, I began to converse with the Lord and expressed to Him that my task felt so much bigger than me, but that I would praise Him anyway. I began singing to Him as I cleaned. Pretty soon, the sinks were clean and I moved on to those toilets. As I got on my knees to clean them, I poured out my heart and prayed for the people who would use the dormitory. In my heart, I had felt like one small, insignificant person cleaning an insignificant toilet at a dormitory in a very small town. I wondered what I was doing there and if I was wasting my time. 

As I prayed, God showed me how our work would help the mission teams that came there to more effectively minister to others. Then, I saw the lives that would be touched by the people they served, and the lives after that. God showed me the ripple that had begun with one insignificant woman's willingness to scrub a toilet, and I wept because I felt honored to be a part of something so much bigger than me: Christ's ministry to the world. 

Today, I remembered that nothing is wasted in God's hands, and it reminded me of the lyrics to an old song I used to sing when I was a kid. "Little is much when God is in it." Thank You, Lord, for giving me dirty toilets to remind me of Your powerful presence.

Blessings,
-P