Bruce Bickel - God Is in the Small Stuff

GOD IS IN THE
SMALL STUFF

and it all matters

and it all matters

Bruce & Stan

1998 by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz

ISBN 978-1-60742-005-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189, USA. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NIV is from the HOLY BIBLE: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Plublishing House.

Published by Promise Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, http://www.barbourbooks.com

Printed in the United States of America.

A popular book suggests that you dont worry about the small stuff. We agree, but we take exception to any idea that the small stuff isnt important. In fact, we want to encourage you to closely examine and cherish the seemingly everyday, ordinary circumstances of your life. Why? Because God is in the details of your life.

Imagine that! The almighty Creator of the universe is interested and active in the details of your life. He cares about what you are doing and thinking. He wants to comfort you in times of despair, pressure, and problems. He wants to uplift your spirit and guide you through lifes tough decisions. He wants to weave the everyday threads of your life into a divinely designed tapestry.

Sometimes its easy to sense Gods presence when you observe His handiwork in nature. You see His majesty in the snow-covered mountains; you feel His serenity in a starry night. These are dramatic reminders of the enormity of God, but contemplating God in nature often leaves us with a lopsided understanding of Him. We think about God as vast, immense, and impersonal.

The purpose of this book is to help you see God at His personal best. God created the universe, but He also created you. God knows you, God loves you, and God cares about the tiniest details of your life.

So I tell you, dont worry about everyday lifewhether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Doesnt life consist of more than food and clothing? Look at the birds. They dont need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are.

MATTHEW 6:2526 NLT

We are convinced that you will learn much more about God (and yourself) as you begin to recognize Gods involvement in the everyday details of life. What makes God so clear to us, wrote Oswald Chambers, is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with usHe knows every detail of each of our individual lives.

This book contains forty short essays to guide you on your journey to discover God in the details. At the end of each essay, weve included a list of contemporary proverbs and suggestions to focus your thoughts on the small stuff in your life.

We hope and pray that you will be overwhelmed by Gods love as you begin to see Him in the small stuff of your life...that you will begin to recognize His plan in the details and seemingly ordinary circumstances...and that you will connect with God in a more meaningful way as you choose to follow His personally designed plan for you.

Bruce & Stan

D o you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding
no one can fathom.

Isaiah 40:28 NIV

W ho is God? Is He a mystery to you? Do you want to know Him better? Maybe you wonder if God even exists. Thats okay. People have wondered about God for as long as...well, for as long as there have been people. They wonder if Hes really out there. They wonder if He made the world and everything in it. And if He did, they wonder if God still cares about whats going on.

Perhaps youve gotten past all of those questions. You definitely believe in God, but you dont know Him. You dont understand His naturein other words, His personality. You arent alone. For many peopleeven those who claim to be religiousthe nature of God is a mystery. Its like God is behind some dark cloud, occasionally speaking in a deep voice to prophets and such (you know, like He spoke to Charleton Heston in The Ten Commandments). Other people think God wants to prevent them from having a good time. If they get close to God, theyre afraid theyll have to give up their freedom.

While its true there are things about God well never know (after all, He is God), there are many things we can know. For example, when we look at our universewhether its through a microscope, a telescope, or the naked eyewe observe incredible design and order and beauty. That means the Designer (that would be God) must be a being of design and order and beauty. And He must be pretty powerful.

When we look at ourselves and see that we all have some idea about God (even when you deny God exists, you have to think about Him), that means the Creator (God again) put that idea in us. Yet God is more than an idea. He is more than a symbol for good or an impersonal higher being. God is a very real spirit Being who has always existed in the past, who exists now, and will always exist in the future. God is personal. God is involved in our world. And God has revealed His nature to us. All we have to do is stop, look, and listen.

T hen the way you live will always
honor and please the LORD...
All the while, you will learn to
know God better and better.

Colossians 1:10 NLT