Reminded of the Value of Small Things

I find some time to reflect on spiritual things this morning after struggling with a lot of anxieties the past few weeks.  It flows on and off.  The spiritual enlightenment of being in the rapture of the heavenly hosts for a brief moment while you're driving to work in the morning becomes the most longed for moment in my life.  

I haven't been able to get a lot of it and still I continue to sort myself out.  It's a very messy process but I write today in response to a blog that I just came across this morning.  Kirby Llaban is a lay missionary for Couples for Christ and he wrote something yesterday that struck me straight away.  

He said:

Do you have a big idea? How long then will it take you to make a prototype or organize a sample group? Do you plan on writing a book? When will you start making the first chapter of that book and let your friends give a feedback? Do you want to write a song? Then write down the first line and hum the first couple of notes. Are there big decisions that paralyze us? One who feels the call to priesthood starts off first with a vocation retreat or a search-in. One who wishes to invest big in business starts off first selling a few samples. Our paralysis can be overcome by doing small steps that will help us feel that it is the right direction to go. Praying daily can help us discover where God is leading us, rather than just praying one time big time and plunging into the decision right away. 

With a small group or sample, we can adjust, correct, and improve. When it's time to replicate, much of the lessons have already been learned and the success rate is higher. 

We notice that Jesus spent much of his time with his 12 apostles. In his 3 years of public life, he never went as far as 100 miles from his home. Yet, look at how globally spread Christianity has become. God even sampled the Israelites, His chosen people, for all of us to learn from. Achieve great things by patiently starting small.

I have so many ideas.  It's primarily why I started the writing project Creativity Limited.  My goal for myself is to be able to find creative breathing spaces, thoughts, experiences, conversations in my the most creatively inhibiting moments I encounter.  But these ideas often bubble up excitedly one day and then diffuses itself into fragmented impulses as I find myself repressed by the circumstances of everyday life.  

What moved me the most in what he wrote was when he pointed out that Christ had a practically reduced universe most of the time only interacting and built close ties with 12 people but reached the hearts of a global world as Christianity had spread 2000 years since then.  

I've been anxious about how my life seems to be "too reduced" to going to work and the occasional ministry service and the very limited creative exploration.  Sometimes I feel that the people I once knew would judge my level of achievement by "how far I've gone".  In turn, I start judging myself for how it seems "I have not gone anywhere".  

So today, I remember Christ and his life and those he has moved by his example.  I remember by telling myself that my most hungered experience of wanting to live a life of meaning will never happen unless I live through and with Him.