The God of Small Treasures

"One day I was walking down the streets of a Montana city with a fellow preacher who had his 3-year old son along. As we walked the little boy looked down and saw a penny lying on the sidewalk. The child became so excited, he reached down and grabbed it. He could have been no happier if it were a thousand dollars.

"Daddy, Daddy," he cried. "Look what I found -- a penny!"

"His excitement fascinated me. I could not imagine getting so excited about so little. I ran my hand into my pocket and found I had a whole pocket full of change, mostly pennies. I hurried my step to walk just ahead of the child and for the next few moments I dropped pennies for the sheer joy of watching his excitement as he found them. 

"Pennies buy so little that I didn't even feel any sense of sacrifice in what I was doing. But to the little boy the retrieval of every one of them was over and again erupting with joy.

"I doubt if I would even stop to pick up a penny, and yet that which was not to be treasured by me was clearly celebrated by the child. I have been overwhelmed time and again by what seems to be God's sense of wonder. Treasuring the seemingly worthless is somehow like our God." (Click here to read the full sermon.)