Looking for God in the little things

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THIS is the lesson we can draw from those parables where Christ compared the Kingdom of God with a mustard seed and a yeast. (cfr. Mt 13,31-35) We need to develop the urge to look and find God in the little ordinary things of our daily life, because only then can we find him in the big things of life, whether good or bad in human terms.

God should be the one who should arouse our most intense and constant attraction. That’s because if we make God the source and cause of all our attraction, of all our joy and pleasures, of what ultimately gives us perfect satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment, all the other things can attract us and give us joy in the proper way, always respecting our true dignity as persons and as children of God.

Otherwise, there is no other way but for us to have merely a fake kind of joy, pleasure and satisfaction that can only lead us to bigger dangers. We really have to train ourselves to make God and to make following his will and ways the constant source and cause of our attraction and joy.

For this, we first of all should ask for God’s grace which is actually given to us in abundance. And from there, let’s go through some systematic plan of life that will nourish and strengthen our constant and intimate relationship with God, a relationship that should involve our entire self—body and soul, feelings, emotions and passions down to our very instincts, as well as our mind and heart.

It should be a plan that should obviously include prayer in all its forms—vocal, liturgical, ejaculatory, mental, contemplative, etc. Our life of prayer should be such that even when we are immersed in the things of the world due to our work and our temporal duties, we would still be aware of God’s presence, and it is doing God’s will that should always motivate us.

Let’s hope that we can manage to see and find God in the little ordinary things of our daily life. That’s because when we fail to see, know and love God in the little things, it is very likely that we also will fail to see, know and love God in the big things of our life. Let’s keep in mind what Christ said in this regard: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” (Lk 16,10)

In short, the point we should realize more deeply is that sanctity, our ticket to heaven, certainly requires heroism, even to the point of martyrdom. But we can be sure that by being consistently loving in doing the little things of life, especially when they are hidden and unappreciated humanly, we would already be very heroic indeed, even approaching the level of martyrdom.

What we have to do is to learn to find God in the little things which comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. Another way of saying it is to learn to refer everything to God, no matter how little or insignificant it is.

We should always be with God at every moment of our day, offering things to him, asking him questions like, “Lord, how should I deal with this particular situation, be it an exciting work or a boring and tiring moment, etc.?”

When we learn to find God in the little things, we have a better prospect of being with God the whole day. Our pursuit for sanctity would be more consistent despite the varying conditions of our daily life.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com