Who [with reason] despises the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. [These seven] are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro throughout the whole earth. – Zechariah 4:10, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Surrounding our home are literally dozens of oak trees. We have quite a few in our yard, but there are many, many more in the woods that surround our home. Each year, we have about a billion acorns fall on our lawn. When we rake leaves in the Fall, we rake up acorns as well. In the Spring, though, we find proof of how many acorns we missed in the raking process, for we always have a bumper crop of sprouting oak trees in the yard and in the mulch beds.

It’s easy to look at all of our acorns as a nuisance. Tiny and seemingly insignificant, they generate more contempt than respect. But, if we were to take a step back and look at those acorns through the eyes of the Creator, those acorns suddenly take on a whole new meaning. Now, rather than fodder for frustration, we can see the acorns in our lives for what they are: the seeds of life! The majestic, decades-old oak tree in our front yard was once an acorn. So were all of the other beautiful trees surrounding our home. But now they’ve grown, providing shade, providing homes for God’s creatures, and displaying beauty by dancing in the wind and by surrounding our home with canvasses of Fall color. Those acorns turned oak trees have brought enormous value to our lives, and so do the acorns turned oak trees in a variety of life’s arenas.

In Zechariah 4, many of the Israelites looked with contempt upon the foundations being laid for the post-Babylonian captivity temple. No more than a shadow of the temple that Solomon had built, the second temple was despised by many. But even though the second temple had small beginnings, God Himself was in those beginnings, rejoicing even when Zerubbabel had nothing more than a plummet (plumb line) in his hand. God saw value at the beginning when the work was small, and those who despised the work did so because they saw it through human eyes, not divine ones.

It is human nature to despise the small things of life. We focus on the big, important matters of the day, failing to realize that those big matters started out as small ones at one time. If we are not careful, we’ll make the horrible mistake of forgetting that God is in the small things of life just as much as He is in the big things, and we’ll look back on our lives regretfully when we realize that by ignoring the acorns, we missed out on our chances to shape the trees.

Never despise the work that God has given you, no matter how small you think it might be. God is in the work, and He rejoices when you pursue it to the utmost of your ability.

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