Carrying a Pitcher of Water
"And there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water." -- Mark 14:13
There is a great deal in the Bible about things we are inclined to call trifles. I think God wants to remind us that he is carefully taking note of all the little details of life.
Nearly two thousand years ago a man was doing a lowly act of service—just carrying a pitcher of water into a house in Jerusalem. How little he thought, as he walked along the street, that the simple duty he was performing that day would never be forgotten. How little he imagined that God was weaving him and his pitcher into the most wonderful story the world has ever known. That man was doing a servant’s work. It may seem a trifling thing to us, but it was not trifling in the sight of God.
We think of some people as insignificant, but they are not insignificant in God’s sight. They may be filling only a lowly place and doing only a lowly service, and yet in the world to come they may have a fuller joy and a more blessed inheritance, than many who are occupying a more conspicuous place and seem to be doing a larger work in the world. The hewers of wood and the carriers of water are by no means to be despised.
God only wants now and then a Paul, a Spurgeon, or a Moody; but He always wants, and the world always wants, a multitude of men and women who are ready to fill to the best of their ability the humbler places of life, and are willing to do a little good whenever and wherever they can, though their deeds are never heralded abroad and their names remain forever unknown. Indeed, the world is more indebted to the many such self-denying, humble workers than to the few who occupy positions of prominence.
Let none of us, therefore, become weary of doing little things for God and humanity. The man who is great in little things is the man who achieves true greatness.
A shovel at a time—that is the way railroads are built. If we wait to do a great deal of good at once, we are likely never to do anything. Little drops of water make the ocean. Little grains of sand make the earth. Life is made up of little things. We must be faithful in these little things, if we would measure up to the full possibilities of our life. If we would do much good in the world, we must be willing to carry our little pitcher of water when that is the thing needed.
