How easy it is to fall into a rhythm of just doing things to do the things. That doing A simply gets you to B. Something goes your way. Something doesn’t. You get out of something. You have to do something extra. This benefits me. This doesn’t. But in all these things God offers something of himself, an opportunity for his grace that goes beyond the mere event or demand of the moment. There is always the choice to throw the moment away or add it to the richness of my life.

St. Augustine understood this, reflecting on the Gospel of Luke, “What is a little thing, is (just) a little thing. But to be faithful in a little thing is a great thing.” The genius of this perspective is that it opens one up to the richness of life in everything, as life is comprised primarily of little things. Consider the alternative: waiting and agonizing or scheming for those big moments to come, wondering how to rid ourselves of the time in between, trying to fast forward through the static. In all that are little treasures, another brick to build that house with a firm foundation.

Those bricks are the moments of our day to redeem through faith and unify into our house; or to toss aside, just a random brick sitting alone. In them are opportunities for acts of obedience. A small task at work I could shrug off or do and grow in integrity. Those little chances for charity. To help a neighbor unload a bulky piece of furniture from her car instead of pretending like I don’t see her and ducking into the garage. Acts of affection to embrace my children. The choice to ignore whatever trade rumors for whatever sports league seem so urgent and to toss the phone aside and play cars with my son. Those little moments become much more when I allow for that little nudge of the Holy Spirit. I say yes and Christ redeems the time, making his Presence known in whatever I’m doing.

These moments add up. The sum of the whole that individually can easily be shrugged off and forgotten about, but together can make one rich or apart can make one destitute. In The Writing Life, celebrated author and observer of the sacred in little things, Annie Dilliard notes, “How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” As a father of 4 very little ones, I spend time in prayer, hope, worry, anxiety, excitement, and all the rest about their future. How do I help them stay faithful in what seems like an increasingly hostile world? Find their vocation? Learn to live a good life? Want to go to church? Make sure they know I loved them dearly? Even pass on these things to their own children one day? But what does helping them on the path to those places look like (besides recognizing that they are not ultimately in my control)?