Too Small a Thing

[scott_ball]

As I was reading day 11 of this devotional, my mind immediately jumped to a message that I had recently heard from Leighton Ford on Isaiah 49. The prophetic passage about Jesus says:

3 He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor. �
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,
and my reward is with my God.�
5 And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength —
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.�
Isaiah 49:3-6 (NIV)

In this passage, the Lord is stating that he would send his servant to not only gather the people of Israel back to himself, but also the nations. Though the biblical scattering we are most familiar with occurs in the Assyrian destruction of Israel and the Babylonian incursion of Judah, there is a much more ancient scattering. In Genesis 11:8a, we are told of the nations that the Lord "scattered them from [Babel] over all the earth," (NIV). This is why, according to Isaiah 49, it is "too small a thing" for Jesus to simply gather the wayward Jews. He must also gather the lost of the nations.

Leighton Ford argues, and this chapter reminded me, that my prayers are often too small. I lose focus, and get distracted as Said was with his goats. He lost laser-like focus on his mission, and the results were potentially disastrous. I, too, can forget what is most important. I can become lost, myself. Or, I can focus on too small a thing and forget that God's purpose and mission is global--and my prayers and vision should be global, too. Whether my work is large or small, it must be motivated by the glory of God and his global mission.