How Godly Character Comes into Being
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, come discover how godly character is quietly forged — not in grand moments, but in faithful attention to the small, daily choices that shape a life.
“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).
Sometimes the challenges of life feel overwhelming. The big picture can seem so large that nothing we could put on our to-do list would be enough to make a difference. And when it comes to the building of a godly character, which is one of life’s most important “projects,” we may have fallen so far behind that “small things” look like a waste of time. We’ll return to this in a moment, but first, think with me about three questions concerning godly character.
(1) What are we waiting for? We joke about procrastination as if it were nothing more than a slight foible or idiosyncrasy, but the fact is, the deferring of effort is one of our major problems in life. If we’ve got a soul-threatening deficiency in our character, the best time to deal with it is now, not next month or whenever a more “convenient season” rolls around. Waiting only makes the problem worse. Chances are, procrastination is what has gotten us into trouble in the first place, so how long are we going to keep deluding ourselves?
(2) What do we do in the hard moments? This question is a variation on the first. Faced with an unpleasant or difficult duty, our character is tested: shall we do what is best? or shall we take the course of least resistance and do what is easy? Starting small and working up to larger “hard moments,” we must learn how to subordinate an impulse to a principle. Doing that, even on a small scale, builds strength today — and it opens the door to greater growth in the future.
(3) How do we handle failure? All of us fail, but there’s no denying that some failures, especially major moral failures, are more catastrophic. Like “hard moments” of decision, major failures show what we’re made of. We’ll talk more about this in tomorrow’s essay, but for now, ponder the adage that a crisis is “a dangerous opportunity.”
As “big” as these questions are, I suggest that progress in them comes from doing our “little” things with gratitude. It is foolish to “despise the day of small things.” Great character is marvelous, but it is made out of small bits. Great people didn’t know they were becoming great; they just entered into their ordinary doings with great mindfulness, seizing the moments rather than throwing them away.
“Temperament we are born with, character we have to make; and that not in the grand moments . . . but in the daily, quiet paths of pilgrimage” (Baldwin Brown).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com