The delight of being small

Oh wow, upon first seeing the ocean.

"You're big, I'm little," my toddler's luminous eyes swell in solemn wonder over this observation. Maggie compares her hand resting on mine, her height to her Daddy's, the size of our clothes, each time bubbling delightedly, "you're big, I'm little." I smile at her pronouncements, expressed in her adorable baby lisp. She's learning about her world and her place in it, my mother's heart rejoices in watching the process. I remember too her older brother's similar delight in discovering the grandeur of nature when he was her age.

As I watch her take in the wonder of a world that is larger than herself, the whisper sweeps across my heart. "Take note of your smallness, delight in My bigness." There's a lesson to be learned in my daughters understanding of her size. Intrinsic to her small stature is a need to be protected and sheltered, she knows that. She also recognizes her parents ability to care for her. Perhaps that is part of what Jesus meant when he challenged his followers to become childlike.

I'm reminded of the psalmist's exclamation in Psalm 8 "LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" Appropriate littleness, magnifying ultimate Bigness.

Of course my daughter is confident in our love for her but she is respectful of our difference is stature. We delight in caring for her, but we do not take advice from her or expect her to function as our peer. There is freedom and safety in our relationship as she acknowledges her smallness in relation to our bigness and as we fulfill our responsibility to her need.

Are there areas in your life where you need to embrace your small stature before God, depending upon his big heart to meet your need? If so a response of worship can restore that balance. Let's join our hearts with the seraphim in declaring, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory!” Isaiah 6:3