What do you see when you look at a little baby? Those tiny hands, little fingers that curl around your little finger that seems so large in comparison. In addition to the baby’s smallness, you also see the potential. And you know the potential is there because you’ve watched a baby grow and have seen those steps of progression into a toddler, a small child.

You’ve watched as the child learns, takes on a distinct personality, grows up, then grows out and becomes a person.

So when you see a baby, tiny and precious, you see the potential there and what it will become. It might grow up to be a great athlete or a doctor or an astronaut, or even a president — the potential is right there in that little baby.

Now what do you think of when you think of a kingdom? A kingdom is big and powerful, an area ruled over by a powerful king. You don’t think of a kingdom as tiny and precious. Yet that is how Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 13.

It is like a tiny mustard seed that can grow into a huge shrub, and birds can come make nests in its branches. And he says the kingdom is like that tiny little bit of yeast a woman puts into three measures of flour so that it permeates through it. And she can take a little of that, and put it away, and she can later use that as yeast for another three measures of flour.

Jesus sees the kingdom as something tiny, but with such potential. It starts small, but it spreads. It started with that tiny precious baby in that manger in an insignificant little town on the edge of the greatest empire the world had known. That empire is now known only in the history books, yet today people sing praises to Jesus all over the world. 

And this kingdom still works best in the small things, in the humblest places, in the least likely of people: A penny given to a beggar, a soup kitchen in a church basement, a nun walking the streets of Calcutta. Tiny, small, yet how powerful!

Just like a mustard seed, just like that little pinch of yeast.

Look around at your church. It may be small but the kingdom is there, tiny, precious with such potential. When you are doing God’s work, through worship, bible study, mission work and fellowship. All are training for the kingdom.

You are tiny and precious and can change the world!

Rev. Dale Brown is the pastor of Cumberland and Guinea Presbyterian churches. His email address is salembesq@aol.com.