I grew up in a small town. Some might say that kind of upbringing is boring but I don’t think so. What living in a small town actually does is highlight the out-of-ordinary events to a greater degree. For example, there was a story once of a man who had been saving loose change his whole life. He had finally gotten enough to buy something big. He wanted to buy a truck. My brother worked at one of the banks in town then, and it was his unenviable job of counting all of the change to see if the guy had enough. The story made the local paper. It turns out he didn’t quite have enough, but it was close. He pretty much had to have a truck to carry the change for the new truck.
Let’s say he had it all in quarters (that makes the math easier), and that he wanted to spend $20,000. That comes to about 1000 pounds of coins. Change is heavy.
How much loose change do you think you have around the house? I decided to find out a few years ago. I went through all the laundry collecting coins. I searched every couch and chair cushion. I looked in the cars. And I got one of those coin collecting banks that counts the money as you put it in. The total was close to a hundred dollars. I read a story about a waste management facility in Pennsylvania, where one worker there talked about extracting all of the coins from trash they gathered. Four acres of the facility is dedicated to this. And get this. They report getting anywhere between $500,000 to 1 Million dollars in coins each year.
People throw away a lot of money without realizing it. People in that Pennsylvania facility estimate Americans throw away up to 68 million dollars worth of coins a year.
If you see a penny on the street do you stop to pick it up? I don’t. What about a nickel, or a dime? Do you pick up a quarter? How much does it have to be worth before you stop to bend down and take it? Little things add up don’t they? We see this in a parable from Jesus:
Matthew 13:1-32
1 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
A mustard seed is about 1 to 2 millimeters in diameter. That’s pretty small. But the plant it turns into is substantial. Each plant produces about 1200 seeds. And the global mustard seed market was 774.15 million dollars in 2024 and will reach 1 billion dollars by 2033.
Let’s revisit this parable. Did Jesus say the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed? No he didn’t. He said the kingdom was like a mustard seed that a man picked up and then planted. This difference is huge. What made it the kingdom of God? It was the fact of someone taking the time to notice, to pick it up, and to do the right thing with it.
Now apply that to your own life. Notice the little things. Don’t dismiss those things because they are small. Do the right thing with them. Have gratitude for the small things. Give a kind word here or there. Take a minute to really listen to someone. Do a small chore for someone so they won’t have to do it themselves. We can accomplish this by minimizing distractions in our lives and focusing on little things that really do mean a lot. We can accomplish this by staying in touch with people and listening to them more.
Start your day by setting an intention. Ask yourself to focus on doing a small thing that day that will have a big impact when you really think about it.
God Bless