Really?
Well … maybe … for some things.
But aren’t the details part of the big picture?
No I don’t mean we all need to be perfectionists. Far from it. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not a perfectionist. I’m human. I can’t be perfect. But that doesn’t mean that everything only requires broad brush strokes with no details. It’s some of the details that many times gives meaning to the finished result.
I saw an example of this the other day as I was walking on a country road. A cluster of tiny flowers nestled down in the grass beside the road. 99.999999% of people who passed by probably never saw those flowers. If anything they saw a faint red-orange shading to some of the grass and passed it by without a closer look. I’ve only seen those clusters in three or four places. They seem to be pretty rare — around here anyway.
A closer look found a detail that God seems to think was important enough, even though most people never see it. A tiny flower (1/2 inch) 1 cm across when it is fully open (it closes up at night).
© Photo by A. Stewart
I have no idea why God took the time to put so much detail into this tiny flower. But I’m glad he did.
It tells me that God is interested in the tiny details of my life that no one else knows about. The details that I don’t really think anyone else sees or particularly would care about even if they did see them. But God sees those details, and he cares about them.
It tells me something else too.
Maybe I should care a little more about some of the details of the work I am doing for him … and some of the details of the people around me. I think God cares about those things.
We’ve all heard (I think) the expression … he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. How about turning that around? Are we guilty of not seeing the trees because all we see is the forest … the big picture?
Sure we need to see the big picture. That’s important. And sometimes it can be “bad” to focus on only the details that are close to us. But let’s not let that become an excuse to overlook “all” the details. Some of them are important. Without them the “big picture” wouldn’t exist.
God certainly didn’t ignore the details in grass gone to seed at the side of a dusty road.
© Photo by A. Stewart
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matt 6:30 NIV)
I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in the Message Bible. If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
So … God pays attention to your details.
What details have you been overlooking?
