Its the Little Things. . .

It has happened several times over the last few weeks. . .I've reached into the dishwasher to unload the clean dishes, except they weren't clean! Yesterday the glasses had a nasty, oily film on them and on the dishes were little bits and pieces of I'm not sure what.

I was beginning to become concerned, after all, the dishwasher is fairly new, it should still be cleaning well. The problem didn't seem to be happening every time, either, only some times. Then it dawned on me.

Although I had loaded the dishwasher in my usual compulsive manner --not over filled, no dishes piled on each other -- I had forgotten one important element.

The soap.

No matter how hot the water, or how perfectly the dishes were lined up in the dishwasher, they would not be clean without the soap. Hence the oily film and little bits of. . .well, whatever.

Life is sometimes like that. We remember the big things. We remember to pray, we remember to read our Bible, to go to church. In fact, we might even make a big deal about those "big" things.

But we forget the little things.

We forget to smile at that person passing us in the hallway. We forget to make the effort to open a door for someone else. We forget to let someone go ahead of us in traffic. We forget to speak to that person who is alone and lonely. In essence, we forget to put the soap in the dishwasher.

I want to be someone who has remembered the little things so much that they almost become a second nature. I know people like that, and I want to be more like them. I want the little things to be as important to me as the "big things."

"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines:
for our vines have tender grapes." Song of Solomon 2:15