Seemingly Small

I enjoy reading about how God uses seemingly small acts of obedience to accomplish far more than we ever dreamed would happen. The “back story” to the hymn, I’m a Child of the King, proves that.

Harriet Buell wrote the words one Sunday while she was walking home from church. She submitted the song for publication. It was printed in the February 1, 1877, issue of the Northern Christian Advocate.

Six years later, when Peter Bilhorn was doing evangelistic work among the cowboys in the West, he and his traveling companions were traveling up the Missouri River on their way to Bismarck. When they stopped at Blunt one Sunday morning to unload freight, a crowd of men and boys came down to the wharf. Mr. Bilhorn took his little organ and went on the wharf-boat to sing a few songs, including I’m a Child of the King.  

He thought nothing more of it, but that was not the end of the story, as Mr. Bilhorn discovered the day he sang that same song in Rev. Moody’s church in Chicago. Afterward, a man in the back of the house stood up and talked about having heard that same song in Blunt, Dakota, two years ago. Although he was then an unsaved man, the song set him to thinking. He decided to accept Christ and was studying for the ministry.

As I reflected on that back story, I felt amazed at the wonderful ways God had used each person’s obedience. The woman, whose heart was filled with gratitude over being a “child of the King,” felt compelled to express her thoughts and to submit them to an editor who chose to publish them. Mr. Bilhorn somehow discovered the song and chose to sing it to the crowd of men and boys. At least one of them chose to believe the Good News that was shared in the simple, yet profound, words penned by Ms. Buell, words  that had finally reached him after having been passed along from person to person.

Dear Reader, since we never know how God will use us to help spread the Good News to those who do not yet know there is a God who loves them and wants to forgive them of their sins and to bring them into His family, may we eagerly do everything, even the seemingly small things, that the Holy Spirit of God prompts us to do. God will take our little and make it much!