Great Love Unleashes True Potential

"It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants." (Mt.13:32) Every small work done with great love unleashes true potential!

Hidden in every task, even in the mundane, is an opportunity for love to be uncovered; for God who is Love, is in all things. Our negative attitude towards work may come from a belittling view of the world around us and an enlargement of the ego within. We belittle things or people who/that don't challenge us; tasks that demean our position; and efforts that move us out from our comforts. 

On the flip side, many of us also belittle ourselves, and rely much on how others criticize us. We may become too overwhelmed by the task at hand to the point of fear and paralysis. We find ourselves constantly faced by a "Goliath"; not realizing the "David" within.

Jesus, sees something big in us, even if others belittle us; he beholds something great in others even if we belittle them. There is no servant's task too small for Him not to merit His love. He washes our feet. He takes notice of a mustard seed and tells us that the biggest thing unimaginable, the Kingdom of Heaven, is such. Are we not more than a mustard seed? 

A "Burj Eyeview" of What is Big and Small

My wife and I had the chance to go up the tallest man-made structure in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai -- 828 meters and 163 floors high. It took us just exactly 1-minute to go all the way up the view deck at the 124th floor. That was really fast! Though we barely felt the speed and pressure.  The view from the top was amazing!  We could see the whole breadth of the city: the sea and the sunset, the modern infrastructure, the systematic highways, and the wide desert. Everything below was so miniature.  There was something about seeing the world from the "Burj Eyeview".  It made me feel big and small at the same time. Big, because I was the one beholding from above. Small, since I knew that if I was the one below, from the standpoint of 828 meters high, I looked smaller than an ant.

We always have to reminded of both our "bigness" and "smallness". First, God is our biggest

fan; we are big in God's eyes!  The psalmist exclaims: "What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:4) We're such a big deal with God, that He sent His own begotten Son, to liberate us from the dominion of sin.  Yes, God loves in a very big way!

Second, we too, have to be small before God; "He must increase; I must decrease." (John 3:30) Man, through the sin of Adam and Eve, has a tendency in wanting to be god or be bigger than God -- rationalizing that the Maker does not exist. We sometimes do not notice it, but the moment we allow pride to take over -- we want ourselves to increase, and God to decrease from our lives; a total opposite of what St. John was conveying.

We---at the same time---realize that we are big with God's love and genuinely have an inner disposition of being small before the Creator.  In acknowledging God's greatness and through our humility alone can we be granted by the Holy Spirit the gift of faith to decipher how to apply---in our own lives---Jesus' teachings: that the "first shall be last and the last shall be first" or to "love your enemies" or that "if anyone wishes to be great, he must be the servant of all." The paradoxical wisdom of Jesus is the key to life, a revelation, that requires of us to follow Him in faith with absolute freedom for our salvation.