This summer I had a chance to go on a trip, with a group of men from our church, to a place where hope is in short supply and the needs are great.

After returning home and reflecting on our time there, I began to wonder how much good we really did. Are the people better off than they were before, or did we simply make things a little better in the short term? I wrestled with God on this in prayer.

In response, I was reminded of a story where Jesus felt compassion on the large crowd, and asked the disciples, “where will we buy bread to feed these people?”

Philip answered, “we don’t have enough budget to buy food for this crowd.”

Andrew piped up, “there is a boy who brought his lunch, but how will that help?”

You probably know the rest of the story; Jesus took the boy’s lunch and made it more than enough.

Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. Our efforts on the trip are akin to the boy bringing his lunch. On our own, our efforts are insufficient to address the needs of the people. There is nothing I can do to address the enormous issues we encountered.

So, am I willing to trust that Jesus will make our small effort enough?

I’m learning that Jesus can take what I call micro-obedience, small acts of doing the right thing, and make something grand out of them.

This is for all of us, not just the folks who get to go on mission trips!

When we obey in seemingly small ways, we are participating with Jesus in bringing about his will for this messed up, needy world.

That little boy got a front row seat to see how Jesus used his lunch.

When we get to Heaven, I’m pretty sure we will be amazed to see what God has done with those seeming insignificant times when we obeyed when we thought no-one was looking.

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