How to Go Small

5 Tips For Your Journey

“Go big or go home.” This is the message our culture seems to send at us nonstop. If you aren’t swinging for the fence you might as well not even step up to the plate.

We’ve become so enamored with the “go big” mentality that we’ve lost the miraculous world of the ordinary, little things. The fact is, our everyday, hour-to-hour life is the staging ground for the enormous, long-term contributions we were each born to make for the kingdom of God on earth. It’s in the seemingly ordinary moments of life where God does His greatest work.

It’s time for us to “go small.” But in our busy world, this is harder than it sounds. It takes a conscious effort to take a step back. To help you get started, here are five ways to “go small.”

Slow Down

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Around this time last year, I had a pretty major health scare. Basically, I got crippling headaches out of nowhere, with no warning. After several trips to the ER in several different states, the only reason any of my doctors could give me for my condition was this: I was going too fast. I needed to slow down.

Shortly afterward, I was in New York City when a friend who lives there invited me to dinner. We met, and as I told him what was going on with me, he quoted a verse of scripture that stopped me in my tracks: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30, ESV)

Are there areas of your life where you need to slow down? Where God is calling you to decrease so He can increase, and show you the miraculous world of the ordinary?

Move Out of the Way

To “go small,” we must understand that our acts of service are all about Jesus and have nothing to do with us. What do I mean? I mean simply: God doesn’t need your ministry idea.

I’m saying this for those of us who are tempted to think we’re a big deal, who pastor a megachurch or who write best-selling books or who head up an international ministry that helps people stop using and making pornography. When you get in the spotlight—even a small one—you can be tempted to think the spotlight exists for you. That you did something to earn the recognition.

Everything I’ve ever accomplished in ministry is something that God could’ve done without me. He doesn’t need me. I need Him. I need to use my gifts and callings and talents for God’s kingdom, and I need to use them because it adds to me – not because He can’t do it without me.

Accept the Ordinary

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“Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.”

A revolution? That’s the type of big thing people like me—and maybe even you—are looking for, are trying to bring about. We’re hoping for a revolution of God’s love and grace to envelop the world with the wonderful message of Jesus’ sacrifice and redemption.

It’s part of the revolution. The three-times-daily work of doing the dishes to make sure everything is clean and orderly at mealtime. To ensure no one gets sick from eating off dirty plates. To develop the discipline of routine and organization.

Doing the dishes—the ordinary, small stuff—is the raw material that the revolution is built out of. Without someone doing the dishes, you wouldn’t have a revolution in the first place.

Learn Little Things Are Big

Jesus did incredible, miraculous things during the course of His ministry, but if you look over the Gospels, you’ll see that Jesus spent quite a bit of His time hanging out with His disciples. Twelve people.

He went small. On purpose.

And what do you imagine Jesus talked about with His disciples? Those guys did a lot of walking around from town to town, so they obviously got into some discussions. I know when I go on road trips, while I can have some pretty heady conversations with my wife or friends, usually we wind up talking about random things. Stories from childhood or fun memories. Ordinary stuff.

Nothing is too small for Jesus. Nothing can be so big and important that it impresses Him. With Jesus, everything is one size fits all. And that size is the size of His kingdom.

Life is Not an Emergency

Ask yourself: How often do I treat life as if it is an emergency? How often do I rush around trying to get from one place to the other? When I’m driving, how many times do I switch lanes in order to get around the next car, and then the next car, and then the one after that—all so I can beat that yellow light before it turns red? How many times have I rushed through the grocery store or the wherever-I-go because I had to be somewhere?

Life can happen on its own time, and as we slow down, move out of the way, accept the ordinary, let little things be big, and reject the notion that life is an emergency, then we are going small ourselves. And when we go small, Jesus can be big. When we decrease, he can increase. And isn’t that the whole point?