I do not remember where I read the above story however it spoke a lot to me then and I kept it. I have had to revisit it and what follows is a little ‘finding’ about how God works and also a reminder not to belittle the little things.

Have you ever had a “Lord, I think You misunderstood me. I asked for a beautiful flower, but You have given me a cactus” moment?  I have. I am beginning to appreciate something about God: He rarely hands over things in its mature state. You ask for a child, He places a foetus in a woman’s womb. You ask for food, He gives you seed. You ask for a home, He gives you a spouse. You ask for wealth, He gives you a skill or more. Even our Salvation needs to be worked out to its maturity…if you are faithful to the end.

Naturally it is easier to prefer the finished good to raw materials. The latter takes longer to get us to our destination although its usually the better option. I feel our inability to see the flower in a cactus or the butterfly in the caterpillar often causes us to ‘lose’ what we have asked for. We lose when we fail to achieve or reach our goal in a particular area. The man in the above story was lucky. He was able to go back where he kept his items and ultimately discover that his needs had been met.  Some are not always so lucky however thank goodness God knows how best to work our mistakes for good. That being said, I feel its more profitable to understand His way and pattern to minimise our loses,  heartaches and even time over ‘unanswered prayers’.  Remember the Israelites, one act of doubt resulted in 40 years of roaming in the wilderness!

The life He has planned out for us is greater than we can imagine, and we have those little things that He has placed in our hands to help us reach our full potential – people, talents, desires, locations, finance, etc. We only need to open our eyes to see the prospects. Abraham’s children as many as the stars in the sky began with one-Isaac. God planned  a beautiful green earth full of people, He began with 2 people and a garden. He asked them to multiply and to tend the garden so man can learn to work with what he has to bring about an increase. We have to learn the same.

This is just a quick note to remind us not to be too quick to throw away or be disgruntled about the little things. Rather, we ought to be thankful and to thankfully work out the big things out of our little. If the man in the little story above had not put the cactus in a pot to grow, the beautiful flower that he longed for never would have come out. I guess the key thing here is to remember that He makes all things beautiful in time, however, before then He needs us to do a little bit of work as well, after-all, we are co-workers and partners with Him.

Every forest began with a seed. If you throw the seed away, you will lose the forest. Your destiny is already in your hands, but you have got to work it out.