Message from Michael

God of the Little Details

I recently had the joy of being able to visit our local “Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens”. If you’ve been able to visit this beautiful site, I’m sure you will have enjoyed the expansive gardens with their lakes, paths and rich variety of plants – flowers, bushes, trees, even a vineyard. There is the sound of bees buzzing to and from their hives and the spectacle of wallabies at feeding time! You may have explored the Leonardslee shop and sampled their food and drink.

You will also have had the opportunity to visit the onsite “Dolls House Museum” – accurately advertised as “an enchanting time-warp in 1:12 scale” with its “Edwardian estate and its neighbouring village.”

This small museum’s attention to detail is marvellous. One can easily and enjoyably spend a great deal of time exploring the carefully and painstakingly put-together landscapes and intricately designed and decorated rooms.

Even with close inspection, a person can still miss little, almost hidden, comical surprises. There is a cat trying to catch a tortoise, a snail on a cauliflower, a trick spider launched by mischievous children through a hole in the ceiling upon an unsuspecting resident below. There are the miniature schoolbooks containing troll doodles in an old school next to the parish church whose vicar is named Rev. E Lations. We chuckled as we called one another over to point out the delightful model miniature puns.

It reminded me that in our created world, our God gave attention to the little details of our lives … He still does. Though the Lord fully comprehends the entire, incomprehensible (as far as we are concerned) universe – He also drills down to the obscure and perhaps easily overlooked and unappreciated details of our little lives. Our God delights in the detail.

I saw a slogan on a van the other day – advertising a company which was “Big enough to cope and small enough to care”. Our God is almighty and more than copes with His creation. Yet, He also steps into His created fallen world, in the person of Jesus, and occupies what comparatively, to Almighty God, is an infinitely small space – showing that He cares. He is our Model Man. God in miniature. And He knows what it is like to walk in a world broken by sin and alienated from Him.

Jesus, in the fulness of who He truly was and came to do, seems to have been largely overlooked in his day. Many ignored him … they still do. Many shunned him … they still do. He was criticised, condemned and crucified. In this way, He paints for us the big picture of a God who is Love; an eternal God who so loved the whole, vast world that He sent His Son. At the same time, however, He also details a God who loves little ol’ us – with our miniscule moments.

As Jesus walked among us, He modelled love in delicate detail. He reached out to touch the leper, He looked up and noticed the tax-man in the tree, He felt and received the wet tears of repentance upon His feet, He watched and pointed out the two small copper coins given by a widow, He welcomed and gave thanks for the two fish and five small loaves in the face of a vast hungry 1000’s-strong crowd. Jesus noticed and appreciated the little things. The little acts of love that made a big impact.

In these days, recognise God’s love for you in the details and allow God’s love to be shown through you in detail. The smile, the kind word, the helpful act. Our seemingly overlooked and unappreciated gestures of love do not go unnoticed by God. God notices you. God sees your love for Him and others traced out in creative and imaginative detail – even if others miss it. Dare we despise the day of small things? (Zechariah 4:10).