I am small. He is big.

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Soy pequeño, Él es grande.

I recently went on a weeklong mission trip to Mexico City with Renewal Ministries.

Our main goal was ministry of presence at each site we went to, establishing a medical clinic as well as bringing suitcases filled with clothes, shoes, toys, and food to the people we met.

We visited one priest in particular who has a long relationship with Renewal Ministries. They’ve known him before he was in seminary and now, as a priest for many years, we go to his village and attend his parish each time we go to Mexico.

Father has a history of meeting violence, the cartel, extreme poverty, and prejudice with grace, mercy, and compassion.

This time when we visited him and his people, we asked him (in our very broken Spanish), what Jesus is saying to his heart.

He responded, “Soy pequeño, Él es grande,” which translates to “I am small, He is big.”

This priest will probably never have a platform, never be known to the world, never have a podcast, radio station, or speak from large stages, but he has the heart of Jesus to recognize how little he is, and how content he is to remain little. He knows that he alone cannot accomplish big things, but by the witness and testimony of his life, he has seen the glory and grandeur of God moving and working through him.

This priest very simply was living out 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Sometimes we think in order to be used greatly for God or to use our voice to make any kind of difference in the world, we have to be seen by many. We think we have to have a large following. We think we have to become important. Only then will God be able to use me!

However, God totally flips this on its head when Paul writes it’s actually when we are weak, small, persecuted, in calamities and hardships that God’s power and strength is made perfect.

It’s not when we are perfect that God is glorified.

So when hardships come, when I feel completely weak and small, I am reminded that God loves to use the littleness of our life to magnify His glory and prove His love for humanity through us.

Do not discredit the mundane, ordinary moments of your life because God uses it all. Nothing is wasted on Him. Even doing something as mundane as the dishes, when united with God and offered in love for the people you’re doing the dishes for, is an opportunity to glorify God and make His Kingdom on earth even more of a reality.

As Saint Teresa of Avila once said, “the important thing is not to think much, but to love much.”

The more we empty ourselves of our own ego, pride, selfish ambitions, greed, gluttony, and vice, the more God can pour more of Himself into our hearts. If we are filled with our own selves, where can God’s grace go?

I am small and cannot accomplish big things. But my God is big, and He alone can accomplish what He needs to through me the more I humble myself before Him.

If this is hard for you to wrap your mind around, the next ordinary task you have to do, offer up a little prayer to God asking Him to use this task for His glory in whatever way He wants. You may never see the fruit of that prayer this side of heaven, but I can guarantee you that the Lord will use that small moment to accomplish His will.

Become small, so that God can become big.