Key Bible Verse: "What this world honors is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). Bonus Reading: Psalm 131:1-3

Reality TV-shows draw on making ordinary people big and famous. We're afraid of small because we think it means insignificant.

When my daughter, Elisabeth, was small, I was cleaning out a car I was trading in. Under the driver's seat, I saw a cassette tape. The bucket seats were close to the floor, so my forearm was getting scraped up as I struggled to bag my prey, knees digging into the concrete. I succeeded only in pushing the cassette further beneath the seat with my fingertips. But I kept reaching, only to encounter the resistance of the fatter part of my forearm. My daughter saw me struggling and tried to get my attention. "Daddy," she said, peeking over my shoulder into the car.

"Just a minute, honey," I responded.

"Daddy," she said a little more urgently.

"Hold on," I said insistently. "I'm trying to get this tape … "

"Daddy!"

I sat upright and snapped, "What do you want?" She leaned past me, shot her little arm under the seat, and easily snagged the tape. As she handed it to me and skipped off, a gentle voice in my heart said, Biggest isn't always best. Little fits where big doesn't.

—Ed Gungor in Religiously Transmitted Diseases

My Response: Am I okay with being less gifted or brilliant than certain others?

Thought to Apply: To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problems of contentment.—GEORGE WOODBERRY (literary critic)

Adapted from Religiously Transmitted Diseases (Nelson Ignite, 2006) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Lord, keep me from accumulating things just to fill a void in my life that only You can fill.

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