I’m on my couch attempting to relax. It’s been a stressful week and I would love to escape into a favorite television show. My muscles begin to relax…my shoulders loosen up a little.

“Ahhh, yes…finally a little time to…”

An agitated little boy approaches me. He’s whimpering and snot crying. My relaxation will have to wait.

Finally, after a couple minutes of wailing, I am informed of the problem. He has lost a piece to a toy. It’s a piece that he has 8-10 others just like. He could still play his game if he didn’t have this little insignificant piece. Unfortunately for my relaxation this piece is not insignificant to him.

My solution to our little conundrum is to settle for a similar piece. We can search for the other piece later. In fact I bet if we just go about our day it will turn up somewhere. No need to call in a search party.

His solution is different. He wants to call in a search party. Stop everything. Grab the flashlights. Disassemble the entire house. All of this to find a one-inch piece that is barely discernible from his 10 other one-inch pieces.

I’m thinking to myself, “Son, in the grand scheme of things this little toy is about as significant as a piece of dust. In a hundred years from now it won’t matter that you used this piece over the other. Why should we start a search party for what amounts to me as a ball of dust?”

The searching heart of Jesus

I’m thankful that the searching heart of Jesus is more like my son’s than my own. He left the glories of heaven to “seek and to save” that which amounts to nothing more significant than a pile of dust. (see Psalm 103)

Dust. Sweep up into the vacuum with a push of the button, dust.

Insignificant…

But not to it’s Maker. Just as that little “insignificant” piece was everything but that to my son, so also we are significant to our Maker.

Dust balls? You bet.

But dust balls that matter to the Maker. Dust balls that cause angels to rejoice. Heaven to swoop. And the Creator to bleed.

That is significant.