Faithful in the Little Things: How One Quiet Yes Can Change Everything

A while back, Pastor Josh Gray sat down to call a friend on behalf of his godson Jacob. Jacob was not asking for help. Jacob was killing it in a big corporate job, fresh out of Gonzaga, making more money in his early twenties than most people make in their thirties. From the outside, everything looked right. But Josh could see where the road was heading. Sixty-hour weeks. A family that would pay for the lifestyle but never actually live it. So God put it on Josh's heart to make one phone call to introduce Jacob to someone in a different career field.

Josh sat on that nudge for a week and a half.

Eventually, he picked up the phone. Jacob took the introduction, took the interview, took the pay cut, and changed his trajectory. A year later, Jacob looked Josh in the eye and told him, "That phone call changed my life." Josh almost did not make it. He told the church on Sunday, "What if some of the most important moments in your life or somebody else's do not feel that important when you are right in them? What if God does some of his deepest work, not in the loud and obvious moments, but in the quiet ones we almost all miss?"

That is the question Jesus is asking in the last stretch of Matthew 23. And it is the question worth carrying into this week.

Are You Paying Attention, or Are You Going to Miss This?

By the end of Matthew 23, Jesus has been speaking for about five minutes of red ink in your Bible app. He has thundered through seven "woes" aimed at the religious leaders of his day. And then he lands the plane with one of the most piercing laments in all of Scripture. He says, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."

You were not willing.

That is the line. Not "you did not know." Not "you did not understand." Not "I never showed up." You were not willing.

Jesus is doing something incredibly kind here. He is taking the religious leaders, and us, on a walk through our past, our present, and our future. And underneath the whole thing is a quiet question. Are you paying attention, or are you going to miss this?

Look Back: The Patterns You Were Handed

Jesus starts with the past. He looks at the religious leaders building monuments to the prophets their ancestors killed, and he calls them out. "You say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part in shedding the blood of the prophets.'" In other words, we would have done it differently. We would have noticed. We would have listened.

If we are honest, that is exactly how most of us think too. I would not have missed it. I would have trusted God. I would have stood firm. We picture ourselves as the exception.

Jesus stops them right there. He says, you are not the exception. You are part of the same story. He names Abel at the beginning of the Hebrew Bible and Zechariah near the end and says, "From here to here, this is your pattern."

Patterns are quiet things. Have you ever caught yourself reacting to your kids the exact way your dad reacted to you? Have you ever caught yourself avoiding the conversation your mom always avoided? Patterns are subtle, but they are powerful. You inherit them without ever choosing them. The first step in following Jesus into the little things is being honest about the patterns you were handed.

The God Who Never Stops Reaching

Before Jesus says one more thing about the future, he says something about the God who is speaking. "How often have I longed to gather you, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings."

That is the image. Not a distant, angry God ready to drop the hammer. A hen sprinting across the barnyard with her wings open, trying to scoop her chicks up before the storm hits.

That is the God we have. He is a God who keeps reaching. A God who keeps pursuing. A God who keeps inviting. No matter how many times you have ignored him, dodged him, or outright run the other way, he is not done with you. The only unforgivable sin in the gospel is the sustained, lifelong rejection of his invitation, because he is going to keep extending it for as long as you have breath. If you are reading this right now, he is still inviting you.

God Is Still Speaking. Are You Willing?

Then Jesus moves into the present. He says, "I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers." Notice the verb tense. He is still sending. That was true in Jerusalem in the first century, and it is true on the Palouse in 2026.

The Holy Spirit is still nudging. Still whispering. Still bringing the same uncomfortable thought back around for the fourth time this month. Not because you did not understand it the first three times, but because you have not yet been willing.

Most of us know the feeling. Something small. Something specific. Something we really do not want to deal with. It is not loud. It just keeps showing up like an old piece of luggage you have been hauling around for years. Make the phone call. Have the hard conversation. Forgive the person. Cut the thing. Tell the truth. Walk across the street. The Spirit does not usually thunder. He nudges.

The question Jesus puts to you and to me is not, "Did you hear it?" The question is, Are you willing?

One Degree Off Course

Jesus does not stop in the present. He walks his listeners into the future. Forty years from that very week, the temple they were so proud of, the one they thought could never fall, would be a pile of stones. They could not imagine it. It is too big. It has been here too long. Our life looks too normal. And then it was gone.

The point is not just historical. It is directional. James Clear has a book called Atomic Habits that says, in a different language, what Jesus is saying here. Small choices compound. The cheeseburger or the salad. The scroll or the prayer. The bitter comment or the kind one. The phone call you make or the one you keep putting off. None of those decisions feels like a big deal in the moment. But over time, they set your direction.

If you take off from Seattle heading for New York and your heading is just one degree off, you will miss New York by about sixty miles. One degree. That is what Jesus is warning his listeners about, and that is what he is warning us about. You do not suddenly end up somewhere. You end up there one little decision at a time.

The Knock at the Door

Here is what makes this passage so kind. Jesus is not telling them this so they will despair. He is telling them this so they will turn around while they still can. He is saying, Look at the direction while you can still adjust. That is what repent literally means. Turn back.

Picture it like this. There is a strong front door on your house, and someone is knocking. They are not yelling. They are not breaking it down. They are just standing there knocking, calling your name, telling you they want to talk. And from inside the house, you can hear them.

You can do one of two things. You can open the door, or you can sit on the couch and post about how much you love them on Facebook while they keep standing outside.

It is wild how often we choose option two. We admire Jesus. We agree with Jesus. We love me some Jesus. And the whole time, he is standing at the door of our actual lives, knocking about the very specific, very quiet little thing he keeps bringing up.

He is not going to break the door down. He is too good a guest for that. But he is still knocking. He has not walked away. The whole arc of the gospel, his life, his death, his resurrection, is the long, kind story of a God who came to the door himself so that you could open it.

The question is whether you are willing to open the door on the little thing he is talking to you about today.

Taking It Into Tuesday

This week, slow down enough to hear the knock. Take some honest time with the Holy Spirit and ask him to point out the specific, quiet thing you have been hauling around. Use these to guide your prayer:

You do not have to figure out the big thing. You just have to be faithful in the little thing he is asking you to do today.

Come As You Are This Sunday

Real Life on the Palouse is a church family where you do not have to pretend you have already figured this out. We are college students, farmers, professors, parents, kids, and a whole lot of regular people right in the middle of the mall, learning to be willing one little step at a time. You do not have to clean yourself up before you walk in.

Join us this Sunday at the Eastside Marketplace in Moscow. Gatherings are at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM. Grab a coffee, get your kids checked into Lifer Kids, and come exactly as you are. Every Sunday we take communion together as a family. It is not just information about what Jesus did. It is a weekly commitment to be transformed by it. To remember the cross. To open the door one more time. To say yes to the little thing.

Plan Your Visit today!