The Power of Small Prayers

If you had to study one subject for the rest of your life, would you choose to study either giant things or tiny things?

I am wowed by huge things like next week’s solar eclipse. But if I’m honest, I love to study small things even better. I love detail and I’m always drawn to the little bitty side of creation.

I think God would choose to study the small things. He is infinite and transcendent over all creation, yet his heart lies with us, so small by comparison.

I love this quote from Victoria Brooks in A Journey to Victorious Praying :

We are surrounded by relationships, but driven by accomplishment. God is the opposite. Though surrounded by accomplishments, He has given Himself in relationship. Though not in need of interaction, He has chosen to pursue it.

The God who created all things with a word from his mouth, who spins the earth on its axis and hangs the stars in the sky, who has managed all life from Day 1 and will continue through all eternity, knows us inside out, through and through. Even more amazing, he craves relationship with us!

I relate to how David felt when he wrote this psalm:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
    the moon and the stars you set in place—
what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
    human beings that you should care for them?

Psalm 8:3-4 NLT

It’s a beautiful mystery I will never understand, but will always appreciate. Because God pursues relationship with us, even the small things in our lives matter to him.

Last week I drove home in the late afternoon and my feet began itching and burning, so much that I could think of nothing else. I realized I was probably having an attack of athlete’s foot, even though I’d never had one before. I peeled off my shoes and slathered cream all over my throbbing toes. I cried out in prayer, “Lord, please help me!”

In comparison to the entire universe, does my non-life-threatening foot infection really matter? Certainly not. But God cared because I was upset and uncomfortable. I propped my feet up, turned the fans on, and prayed for the medicine to do its work. In half an hour, I felt better, and I thanked God for helping me with this small inconvenience. I thanked him for medicine, I thanked him for cool fans, and I thanked him that I didn’t have anywhere to go that night.

Do you offer up small prayers to God every day? I sometimes feel foolish for doing so, because I have such reverence for him. Yet when I pray about misplaced keys, paper cuts, and a string of red lights when I need green ones, I feel closer to him.

In Start with Amen, Beth Guckenberger shares a story about small prayer. She needed to buy a purse one hour before a speaking engagement, since her former Coach purse had been stolen. In her hurry after her flight to the U.S., she found a leather purse she liked, but it cost $276. She put it back and resigned herself to her daughter’s shabby dress-up purse. That night she stayed at her parents’ home. She opened a package mailed to her parents’ home from a college friend, who had sent her a birthday gift.

It was my $276 leather backpack purse. Exact. Same. One.

A flood of thoughts came over me as I held it.

She and I had never exchanged gifts so generous before.

She didn’t know about the theft, did she?

Is this for real? God picked this out for me before I wanted it today?

I was so sure he didn’t care about designer purses. I had spent a month disciplining my thoughts so I wouldn’t grieve something as silly as a purse. Yet here he was, reintroducing me to himself all over again. I care about everything you care about, he seemed to say.

Last time I wrote about the power of praying big. Big prayers are exciting, challenging, and thrilling. Small prayers are humble, ordinary, and unimpressive. Both matter to God. Both draw me closer to him.

Questions for reflection: 

What small prayer has God answered for you most recently?

How do small prayers draw you closer to God?

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