Where do you find it easy to spend your time?  We often gravitate to those tasks that are easy rather than tasks that are difficult but prove to be significant in the long run.  The easy tasks can provide a much needed sense of accomplishment but we must be careful that we do not substitute doing good things for doing great things.

Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld wrote, “Ceux qui s’appliquent trop aux petites choses deviennent ordinairement incapables des grandes.”  Which translated says,

Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things.  (Maxims 41)

When I say “yes” to one task I am automatically saying “no” to something else.  The reality is that great things are rarely easy things so we may find excuses not to do them.  The danger is we can become involved in supposedly “good things” but miss the “great things”.  Checking the facebook newsfeed for hours may be interesting but it probably doesn’t help you accomplish your projects.  One of the great tragedies of life is to succeed at that which doesn’t matter.

C.S. Lewis warns us of the dangers of mediocrity in his insightful essay The Weight of Glory,

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.  (See Enlarging Your Horizon for an amplification of this concept.)

What great task is God calling you to accomplish?  Jesus reveals a sense of urgency as he says,

We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  (John 9:4)

This one life will soon be past but only what’s done for Christ will last.  Make sure your life is not consumed with “small things” so that you are capable to accomplish “great things”!

Dr. Rick Higgins

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University