Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, 
the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
Matthew 18:4

Did you ever notice that Jesus always seemed to have small children close to Him? They must have felt comfortable just hanging out with Him, and today’s verse zeros in on one of those little ones. That day, the disciples, were arguing about who was the most important. Maybe Peter started it off by telling everyone how he had walked on water – at least a few steps.  Matthew could have mentioned that he had given Jesus the biggest party and of course John probably burst in by saying, “But he loves me the most!” While their debate raged on and they were trying to prove who was the best, they had not noticed a young boy who was listening – but Jesus did. Then Jesus took him by the hand and put him right into the middle of their circle and said, “This one (who you didn’t even notice) is the most important to God.“

Does that sound as familiar as your most recent family argument? Haven’t we all sometimes lost perspective on our attitude and the example we are setting? It is easy to get so worked up over the big important things we are doing for God, that we forget that what matters to Him the most is the “little people” around us. Often the little things we could do for them go undone because we are so busy trying to do “big things” for God. But to God there are no big or little things – no big or little people. What is big to God is whether we are doing the small things that He asks. Today people sometimes say, “Dream big!” with the focus on us. But God will never help us to do those “big things”, until we are willing to become like that child who simply wanted to be close to Jesus.