The Power of Little Things

As I reached down to buckle up my sandals, my right leg hurts – I can’t believe it – I am unable to reach low enough to buckle up my sandals on my right foot. How come? This was not a hard task to do a couple of weeks ago, but my neglect of my leg raises and other exercises has this effect already.

It hit me hard – this thing I know for a long time now – little things matter. The 100 leg raises while supine, on my side and prone may just be a 20-minute thing in the morning, but I can easily feel the result.

Little things count. A musician once said that if he cannot practice for a day, he knows; if he cannot practice for 2 days, his teacher knows, and if cannot practice for a week, the audience will know.

"If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it." Jascha Heifetz

"It may take practice to think more positively and more compassionately, but just as you must train a puppy to behave the way you want it to, you must train your mind to behave itself. Otherwise, like the puppy, your mind will just make a lot of messes." Tom Barrett

"Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things, and then proceed to greater." Epictetus

I painfully know how it is. If I miss my exercises for just a couple of days, my leg will lose the little strength that it has gained so far.
So it is with life.
Don’t underestimate the power of little things – they are the stuff big things are made of.

Even Lucifer, a bright cherub who was always in the presence of God lost his position because “little by little, he nourished the seed of jealousy and pride in his heart.”

"It is by slighting the daily opportunities, by neglecting the little things right at hand, that so many become fruitless and weathered." E. G. White

“Little by little Satan came to indulge the desire for self-exaltation” and God's established order was disrupted.—Ellen G. White, The Faith I Live By, p. 66.