God looks for faithfulness in little things

- Zac Poonen

1 Kings 19:19-21New International Version (NIV)

The Call of Elisha

19 So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. 20 Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”

“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”

21 So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

In 1 Kings 19:19-21 we read of Elijah calling Elisha.
Elisha was working hard in the fields with his oxen, when Elijah called him.

Notice first of all, that God always calls those who are working hard and faithful in their secular occupations.Moses was faithfully looking after his father-in-law’s sheep when God called him.



David was looking after sheep and fighting with lions and bears. Amos was a hardworking herdsman. Peter, James, John and Andrew were hardworking fishermen. Matthew was sitting at the table working on his accounts.


We never see, anywhere in the Old Testament or the New Testament, that God called a lazy man for his service. We don’t find Elijah going to Elisha’s house when he was fast asleep and calling him there - because we would have thought he was a lazy man. Jesus also never went to Peter’s house in the evening to call him. He called him when he was fishing. All these examples show us that God wants us to be faithful and hardworking in our secular jobs, before He can call us to serve Him.


If you are not faithful in earthly matters, how can you be faithful in heavenly matters? If you are young and still living at home, then be a faithful son or daughter at home.

Notice secondly, that all these men dropped everything and went, as soon as God called them. We see that in Peter, John and Matthew and also here with Elisha.

God calls those who will respond to His call immediately and wholeheartedly.
They may seek to confirm God’s call on their lives with godly people in order to be certain that they are not acting on their own emotional feelings.

But once they are sure, they act quickly. God can use only such people to serve Him, because His service requires instant obedience, total commitment and hard work.
So God tests us in our secular occupations, to see whether we are faithful.

If you are asked to clean a room and you are careless about the way you do it, or you are slipshod about it, I doubt if God will ever call you to serve Him. Because, if that’s the way you clean up a room that will probably be the way you clean up your heart as well.

How then can God use you to clean up His church?
It is faithfulness in the little things that God looks for.

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Hold steady and let God work

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 New International Version (NIV)

17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

There are times in your life when everything you attempt to do will seem to go wrong. Your faith may be strong and your commitment deep, yet adversity will come knocking on your door. In such times, the power of prayer will strengthen and stabilise you. But you can't pray away life's seasons! God has a purpose for not allowing you to be fruitful all the time.

Real growth requires seasons of struggle as well as seasons of success. Your seasons of struggle destroy pride in your own ability, increase your dependence on God, and cause you to say, like Paul did, 

2 Corinthians 3:5 New International Version (NIV)

5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.

These are humbling experiences, but you need them. Your life is like a tree: in winter it silently refurbishes its strength, preparing for the next season of fruitfulness. As you look back on your life's accomplishments you'll notice that they are seasonal. There are seasons of rain as well as sunshine, and each season serves an important purpose. That's why it's a mistake to make a permanent decision based on a temporary circumstance or changing emotion.

The word temporal means 'subject to change'. Hold steady, it's not always going to be this way! Sometimes the situation doesn't call for action, it calls for patience and trust in God. In ways you cannot understand, God is making the circumstances you're in today work for your good.

A Picture of Patience

- By Max Lucado


Come with me to Paris, France, 1954.

Elie Wiesel is a correspondent for a Jewish newspaper. A decade earlier he was a prisoner in a Jewish concentration camp. A decade later he would be known as the author of Night, the Pulitzer Prize winning account of the Holocaust. Eventually he’ll be awarded the congressional Medal of Achievement and the Nobel Peace Prize.

But tonight Elie Wiesel is a 26-old unknown newspaper correspondent. He is about to interview the French author Francois Mauriac, who is a devout Christian. Mauriac is France’s most recent Nobel laureate for literature and an expert on French political life.


Wiesel shows up at Mauriac’s apartment, nervous and chain-smoking — his emotions still frayed from the German horror, his comfort as a writer still raw. The older Mauriac tries to put him at ease. He invites Wiesel in, and the two sit in the small room. Before Wiesel can ask a question, however, Mauriac, a staunch Roman Catholic, begins to speak about his favorite subject: Jesus.

Wiesel grows uneasy. The name of Jesus is a pressed thumb on his infected wounds.Wiesel tries to reroute the conversation but can’t. It is as though everything in creation leads back to Jesus. Jerusalem? Jerusalem is where Jesus ministered. The Old Testament? Because of Jesus, the Old is now enriched by the New. Mauriac turns every topic toward the Messiah.

The anger in Wiesel begins to heat.

The Christian anti-Semitism he’d grown up with, the layers of grief from Sighet, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald — it all boils over. He puts away his pen, shuts his notebook, and stands up angrily.


“Sir,” he said to the still-seated Mauriac, “you speak of Christ. Christians love to speak of him. The passion of Christ, the agony of Christ, the death of Christ. In your religion, that is all you speak of. Well, I want you to know that tens years ago, not very far from here, I knew Jewish children every one of whom suffered a thousand times more, six million times more, than Christ on the cross. And we don’t speak about them. Can you understand that, sir? We don’t speak about them.”
(David Aikman, Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century, Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998, p. 341-342.)

Mauriac is stunned.

Wiesel turns and marches out the door. Mauriac sits in shock, his woollen blanket still around him. The young reporter is pressing the elevator button when Mauriac appears in the hall. He gently reaches for Wiesel’s arm.

“Come back,” he implores.

Wiesel agrees, and the two sit on the sofa. At this point Mauriac begins to weep. He looks at Wiesel but says nothing. Just tears.

Wiesel starts to apologize. Mauriac will have nothing of it. Instead he urges his young friend to talk. He wants to hear about it — the camps, the trains, the deaths. He asks Wiesel why he hasn’t put this to paper. Wiesel tells him the pain is too severe. He’s made a vow of silence. The older man tells him to break it and speak out.

The evening changed them both.

The drama became the soil of a life-long friendship. They corresponded until Mauriac’s death in 1970. “I owe Francois Mauriac my career,” Wiesel has said . . .and it was to Mauriac that Wiesel sent the first manuscript of Night.

What if Mauriac had kept the door shut? Would anyone have blamed him?

Cut by the sharp words of Wiesel, he could have become impatient with the angry young man and have been glad to be rid of him. But he didn’t and he wasn’t. He reacted decisively, quickly, and lovingly.

He was “slow to boil.” And, because he was, a heart began to heal.

May I urge you to do the same?

2 Peter 3:9New International Version (NIV)

9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

And if God is being patient with you, can’t you pass on some patience to others? Of course you can.

The True Satisfaction - D.L. Moody

The famous preacher D.L. Moody told about a Christian woman who was always bright, cheerful, and optimistic, even though she was confined to her room because of illness. She lived in an attic apartment on the fifth floor of an old, rundown building. A friend decided to visit her one day and brought along another woman - a person of great wealth.

Since there was no elevator, the two ladies began the long climb upward. When they reached the second floor, the well-to-do woman commented, "What a dark and filthy place!"

Her friend replied, "It's better higher up." When they arrived at the third landing, the remark was made, "Things look even worse here."

Again the reply, "It's better higher up."

The two women finally reached the attic level, where they found the bedridden saint of God. A smile on her face radiated the joy that filled her heart.

Although the room was clean and flowers were on the window sill, the wealthy visitor could not get over the stark surroundings in which this woman lived. She blurted out,
"It must be very difficult for you to be here like this!"

Without a moment's hesitation the shut-in responded, "It's better higher up."

She was not looking at temporal things. With the eye of faith fixed on the eternal, she had found the secret of true satisfaction and contentment.