Devo Thursday

 

For who has despised the day of small things? Zacchariah 4:10


"Como esta?" Simon asks as he enters the library where I work. "Muy bien, gracias, y tu?" I answer. He has been helping me learn Spanish and I have mastered the greetings. Recently he discovered that I have five daughters and asked, through my Spanish speaking co-worker, how he could apply to meet them. I grinned and ventured into new vocabulary. "Mis hijas son cansada." Simon and my coworker looked puzzled and then burst into laughter. "You have just told him that your daughters are tired. You meant to say "casada married". Ah, so much to learn. But as I thought about it during the day it occurred to me that sometimes there is just one little thing standing between marriage and tired.

Zerubbabel had been given the power to rebuild the temple. What a mountainous and exhausting task! But the Lord said in Zacchariah 4:6, "Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit." He declared in that chapter that the mountain would become a plain before Zerubbabel. He had managed to lay the foundation but now needed to do the many little things that would add up to such a large accomplishment. Those little things must not be "despised".

I am awed to think that the same principle applies to our marriages, or any relationship. We must not despise the little things. The little day to day thoughtful surprises; gentle words, phone calls, notes, gifts, positive encouragement help to keep things new. There's that little 'n' that is so important to keep 'tired' out of 'marriage'. Through the Holy Spirit we are given power to build and rebuild our marriage and keep it new, or 'nuevo' as Simon would say.

What ways do you do little things for the ones you love?