The Little Things

Cannon Beach - July 2023

Be faithful with the little things and then everything else will be added.

So (picking up from the last blog) I was doing my best to remain in this “breaking” season. Trusting in his timing and faithfulness. He assigns me to community, to coaching baseball, to creating, to healing. So many challenging, painful, but incredibly important decisions that have impacted Christina and I for the better. Yet as summer of 2024 came to a close I felt crushed, angry, SO angry. Not sure why, or at what, but this simmering tension sat beneath the surface of my day. “I don’t know why but I just feel so angry!” I’d tell Christina. I wrestled with this for a few weeks when around the end of August I realized.. oh, it’s me I’m angry at….

But why? Sure I wasn’t happy to be a 29 year old professional grocery shopper but I really do believe I was being obedient to the Lord and I’m right where he wanted me. And then it was clear:

Shame.

Oh the shame I have. The shame of how I spent my 20’s. The shame of the man I feel I am compared to the man I truly wish I was. The shame of being a husband who can barely provide for his family and has no clear idea of what the future holds for us. 

I’m a 29 year old kid who wants to grow up, but I don’t know how.

So this is the breaking.

God, teach me how to grow up.

“Willie, be faithful with the little things.”

Here’s the thing about the little things.. they aren’t as important as most things. I don’t think anyone would argue the doing the dishes is more important than spending time with family, or laundry more important than prayer, or scrubbing the bathroom should take priority over impacting the lives of young teens as a coach. Yet, God doesn’t entrust you with more because of your faithfulness to the “medium sized” things, or even the “big” things.

But I’m really good at being faithful with the medium sized things!

Later the next month in September I attended the men’s retreat my church puts on each year. Although I had such inner turmoil of anger going into that weekend, I hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. The last discussion group session of the weekend the leader asked, “What’s one discipline you can begin to practice regularly that will increase your relationship with God?”

I heard it: CLEAN THE HOUSE.

Could prioritizing my home, my family, my wife, and the duties of our covenant be worship? be a way to glorify God with my life? Surely. Not only that, but I would say my first duty in serving the Lord is through the service of my wife.

Any idea what my wife’s #1 love language is…?

Service.

Oh… clean the house. Grow up. Be faithful with the little things and THEN everything else will be added.