Are You a Chihuahua?
While out walking my dog, Ebony, I encountered our neighbor's ferocious, protective, barking terror as he tried to dominate our fun-loving black lab.
Who was this canine monster?A chihuahua.
Someone forgot to inform this little beast that he was a small dog. He wasn't afraid to take on my lab that outweighed him by 100 pounds.
I belong to a church, that if we were a dog, we'd be a chihuahua. Although consisting of less than 150 people, our church does not know it is small. I have never heard the leaders say, "We can't do that. We're a small church." And I love that about this group of people.
I think we’re in pretty good company, because when we look at the Bible, we see over and over again how God uses the small, the humble and the common to do mighty things in his name. The Feeding of the 5000 is the only miracle mentioned in all four Gospels, emphasizing the importance of this lesson. According to John Rowell in Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church, this story illustrates how God can take an ordinary gift given with a willing heart and through divine intervention meet at extraordinary need.
Rowell adds, “Jesus proved by feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish that it is not the size of our resource pool, but the limits of our faith and our vision that determines our impact for the Kingdom of God.”
This summer our church sent four students, led by leaders Matt and Holly Jacks, to Mozambique, Africa. In the twenty-six years that my husband and I have pastored at Trinity Christian Fellowship, we have sent students to the following countries on short-term mission trips:
Thailand
India
Nepal
Japan
Indonesia
Philippines
Vietnam
Korea
China
New Zealand
Australia
Fiji
Navajo Nation
Jamaica
Haiti
Mexico
Guatemala
Belize
Honduras
Costa Rica
Panama
Columbia
Venezuela
Brazil
Ecuador
Peru
Bolivia
Ukraine
Russia
Italy
Albania
Macedonia
Romania
Spain
Hungary
Croatia
England
Portugal
Botswana
Ghana
Zambia
Angola
Kenya
South Africa
Liberia
Uganda
Forty-six countries in all, plus several students also traveled to needy areas in the United States, including New Orleans after the flooding.
I say this, not to pat ourselves on the back as a church or to rest on past achievements, but to continually challenge myself in my own journey with God. I may have two children off in Mozambique, Africa, but that doesn't let me off the hook here at home.
What is God asking me to do?
What is stopping me?
Is it money? Is it resources?
Faith? Vision? Fear?
I need to learn a lesson from the tiny chihuahua and from a young boy who shared his lunch in the Bible, that what I have to offer may seem small in my eyes, but in the hands of God, nothing (and nobody) is too small to bring Him glory.