The Baptist missionary to India, William Carey, in a 1792 sermon, made famous the phrase “Expect great things; attempt great things.” These words became the bedrock of the modern missionary movement in the nineteenth century. Carey’s words today have worked their way into modern-day evangelicalism, appearing on Christian T-shirts, home décor, and bookmarks.
Growing up, I often heard this phrase in my mainline liberal tradition. It encouraged believers to dream big and have a large vision of life. To be bold in changing the world by doing radical and exciting new things. Thus, the well-intentioned phrase Carey used in the context of world missions has now become a trite expression meant to motivate believers to achieve great success and transform this world for Jesus’s sake.
What God Calls Us To
Scripture, however, never calls the believer to set out to change the world. That is God’s work in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:19). It is the gospel that transforms the hearts of men and women and ultimately the culture and the world (2 Cor. 5:17). Believers are called to do the good works which God has prepared for them beforehand (Eph. 2:10).
Rather than seeking out fame in this world, God calls the believer to faithfulness to his Word (Luke 11:28). God does not seek extravagant burnt offerings and sacrifices but rather ordinary obedience (1 Sam. 15:22). God does not call us all to be radical revolutionaries. But he calls us all to be radically repentant, believing his Son and obedient to his law in the mundane everyday things of life (Acts 26:20).
It is far easier to be an activist for an ideal cause than to love your unruly and messy neighbour. It is easier to be excited by the big things in this world than to be motivated to do the small things of life.
Faithfulness in the Ordinary
As the American author, P. J. O’Rourke, famously wrote, “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help mom do the dishes.” However, it is precisely this ordinary, dull, everyday faithfulness that is most demanding in this world. And it is precisely this which God expects from his people.
The American theologian Michael Horton, in his book Ordinary, writes,
I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I’m short on sleep and patience is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I’ve lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day—an afternoon with a colicky baby where I’m probably going to snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbour—without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough.
The Christian life is not to be spent in attempting the great things of our dreams. But rather, in doing the small things that God expects of his people. Our life is never about our imperfect and incomplete work but rather the perfect and complete work of Jesus upon the cross (Phil. 3:8-9). Our life is never about our name or our legacy but rather about the name and legacy of Jesus (1 Cor. 10:31).
A Faithful Small Life Glorifies a Great God
When the end of your life comes, you might not have climbed to the top of your company. You might not have earned a fortune to your name, and you might not be known beyond the small circle of your community. However, if you have loved Jesus well and served his church faithfully, if you have loved your family and nurtured your children in the fear of the Lord, and if you have daily repented of your sins, looking to Jesus, then know that you have been faithful and your life is not in vain.
George Eliot, in her book, Middlemarch wrote, “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
How true this is! Thank God for faithful hidden lives. A small life lived faithfully to God glorifies a big and faithful God.
