Faithful in the Small Things

When I was 10 years old, my parents decided that my brother and I should learn to work by taking a paper route. The Longview Daily News hired teens to deliver their papers in the afternoons, and a route came open in our area. The minimum age to have a paper route was 12, so we put the route in my brother's name, but we shared the route.

Our paper route was in essence a mini-business that contracted with the Daily News. Every day all the papers for our route were dropped off on our driveway, then whether rain or shine, snow or sleet, hot or cold, we were responsible to deliver them.

At the end of each month, we owed the Daily News a fee to cover the cost of all the papers they delivered to our house. To be able to pay that fee, we had to collect money from our customers. If we collected from every customer, there was a profit left over for us. If we failed to collect, our failures ate directly into our profit margin.

One of the key ways to make extra money in the paper route was through tips. Many customers had special requests, such as the paper being delivered on their doorstep or to a special box. As we were faithful to make sure their papers were delivered on time in the way they expected them, we would often receive tips to increase our income.

Every once in a while, we would end the paper route with an extra paper or two. This was not good news, since it most likely meant that we had missed someone. Not only was missing someone a sure way to work yourself out of a tip, it could also generate an official complaint. Too many official complaints could cost a paperboy his business with the Daily News. Therefore, some evenings we had to make the extra effort to find out who we had missed, take them their paper, and apologize. This brought extra motivation to get the job done right the first time.

Jesus was also trained to work from a young age, and out of His experience and revelation, He taught this principle:

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is
unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been
faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
(Luke 16:10-12)

Simply put, God has freedom to give His children revelation based on how faithful they have been with their assignments and how they have handled His money.

As Americans, we have a history of practicing this principle. People are generally required to start at the bottom of a business and work their way up by proving they are faithful and dependable. They often started with jobs that were considered unpleasant or difficult but promised the opportunity to advance to something better. Banks would only give loans to people with a good credit history of proving they can take a loan and pay it back in a faithful way. Good credit could take years to build, but the reward was easier to access to needed money. That said, over the past 10-20 years, our society left this principle, and of late we have paid the consequences.


Any time society operates on the basis of a biblical principle, it will receive God's blessings as a result. Any time a society leaves a biblical principle, it will suffer the consequences as well. Our nations current consequences has been the mortgage crisis caused by defaults of sub-prime mortgages and the recession that followed, including the resulting bankruptcies of many of the nations largest corporations and banks.

Jesus continued His teaching on faithfulness saying,

And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's,
who will give you what is your own? (Luke 16:12)

My wife, Holly, and I have the current assignment from God to teach our children how to be faithful with what is not their own. Our youngest son is learning how to mow our lawn, walk the dog, take care of the trash, and clean the kitchen as if they were his own. In addition to household responsibilities, our daughter is learning how to faithfully operate a mini-business of shipping items sold on eBay. In addition to his lawn mowing business, our oldest son as the added assignment of learning to faithfully use a credit card without going into debt with it.

In spite of economic recession and a society riddled with unsecured debt, those who have learned to be faithful in the small things will prosper in the years to come.



Benjamin Davis is Senior Pastor of Abundant Life Covenant Church.
(This article has been reprinted from Present Truth magazine, February 2009 issue)