In one of our recent “Scrappy Church” sessions we talked about small actions and how they can have big effects when added together. The author calls this concept eating an elephant. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Sitting down with the idea to eat a whole elephant is kind of crazy. You would be eating for weeks and weeks. But sitting down to take one bite at a time doesn’t seem so bad. You can make small progress. The goal may be the same, eat the elephant, but the pressure of doing it all right now doesn’t have to be there.

 

As we look at ways to make an impact for Jesus we can get overwhelmed by the number of things there are to do, the people that need to be helped, the changes we need to make and allow God to make within us, the cost financially, time, and energy which can all stack up and seem insurmountable. In that moment we can remind ourselves to take one bite. To make small incremental progress, day by day, and allow those changes to compound to get us to the place we are called to be.

 

One bite at a time gets us there in a much more manageable way than trying to unhinge our jaws and swallow the elephant whole. But we do all this all the time, we look at the world and its problems and think, “well, if I can’t fix it all, what is the point in trying?” It matters to the one person you got to help today, in whatever measure you got to help them, and, if we have 50 people doing small things to bless those around them every day, that will add up pretty quick. So, grab your fork and get ready to take one bite at a time. We will get this elephant eaten, slowly but surely.