When the women’s fellowship at her church in Surulere drew up its new care rota, Adaeze was hoping for something with a little more shape to it. She had been in the fellowship for six years. She could lead worship, she was good with numbers, and she had quietly wondered whether this might be the year she was asked to coordinate the prayer team. Instead, the fellowship leader read out a list of elderly members who lived alone, and beside each name she read the name of a younger woman who would phone them once a week. Beside “Mama Morenike” she read, “Adaeze.”
That was all. One phone call, every Thursday evening. Ask how she is. Ask whether she needs anything. Pray with her if she wants. Let the fellowship know if something is wrong.
Mama Morenike was eighty-one, a retired primary school teacher who had buried her husband nine years earlier and whose children lived in Houston and Manchester. She lived alone in a two-bedroom flat near the stadium. On the first Thursday, Adaeze called and they talked for twenty minutes about the weather, the price of tomatoes and Mama Morenike’s knees. Before she hung up, Adaeze asked one more question: “Ma, who lives closest to you, in case you ever need help quickly?” The old woman gave her the number of the family downstairs. Adaeze saved it in her phone under “Mama M neighbour” and forgot about it.
For almost two years she called every Thursday. Most of the calls were ordinary. Some were short. Occasionally she forgot until ten o’clock and called anyway, apologising. The fellowship never mentioned the rota again. Nobody asked her to lead anything.
Then came a Thursday in the rainy season when everything went wrong. Adaeze worked in human resources for a logistics company in Apapa, and that evening the container trucks had locked the roads for hours. She reached home at twenty to ten, soaked and exhausted. NEPA had taken the light. Her phone was on six per cent. She sat on the edge of her bed and started typing a message: “Good evening Ma, so sorry, I will call you tomorrow.”
She did not send it. She told me later that she could not explain why. She deleted the message and dialled instead.
The phone rang out. She called again. It rang out a second time. In two years Mama Morenike had always answered on Thursday evenings, usually before the second ring.
Adaeze scrolled to “Mama M neighbour” and pressed call.
I will tell you what happened next at the end of this teaching. For now, notice how small the responsibility was. One phone call a week. It would never appear on anyone’s list of important ministries. And yet on the other end of that phone was a woman for whom it was not small at all.
Small on whose side?
We usually measure the size of a responsibility from our own side. A task feels small when it takes little time, attracts little attention and seems to lead nowhere. By that measure, a weekly phone call is very small indeed. So is checking the expiry dates on the medicine shelf, locking the church gate after the vigil, writing the dosage clearly on a child’s prescription, filling in the attendance register for the Sunday school or making sure the generator has diesel before the evening service.
But every one of these tasks has another side. The person who takes the medicine depends on that expiry date being checked. The children in the Sunday school depend on someone noticing who has stopped coming. The old woman alone in her flat depends on the Thursday call. On their side of the responsibility, it is not small at all.
That is the first thing this teaching wants to say. A small responsibility already matters to the person depending on it. It does not need to lead to anything bigger in order to be worth doing well. The value is already there, in the life of the person on the other end.
We easily lose sight of that, because many of us have absorbed a way of thinking that treats small things as a ladder. Do the little task well, and you will be promoted to a bigger one. There is some truth in that, as we shall see. But when promotion becomes the reason for faithfulness, the small task becomes merely a step to stand on while we look upward. We do it to be noticed. And when we are not noticed, or when the promotion does not come, we lose interest in the task altogether.
PunchlineThe people depending on us do not experience our faithfulness as a career strategy. They experience it as care, or as its absence.
Faithful in that which is least
Jesus said, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10). We often hear this verse as a promise about promotion: be faithful in small things and God will give you big things. The next verses do speak of being entrusted with “the true riches.” But look at what the first sentence actually says. It is a statement about character. The faithfulness that shows up in the least is the same faithfulness that shows up in much. A person does not become faithful when the stakes rise. He reveals what he already is.
So faithfulness in the least is the same faithfulness, practised where fewer people can see it. In some ways it is purer, because there is less to gain from it.
Solomon asked a searching question: “Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?” (Proverbs 20:6). Goodness that is announced is easy to find. Faithfulness that keeps turning up, week after week, when nobody is clapping, is rare. And Solomon described what it feels like to depend on someone who is not faithful:
Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint.
A broken tooth looks fine until you bite down. A dislocated foot looks fine until you put your weight on it. The trouble with unfaithfulness is that it fails precisely at the moment when someone leans on it. Notice who feels the pain. It is the person depending on the tooth or the foot. When we are careless with small responsibilities, we are seldom the ones who get hurt first. Someone else bites down and finds nothing there.
That is why small responsibilities deserve our full attention. They are almost always responsibilities toward someone.
Five, two and one
Jesus told a parable about a man going on a long journey:
For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
A talent in the ancient world was a measure of weight, usually of silver or gold, and it represented a very large sum. One talent was worth many years of a labourer’s wages. That detail matters. Even the servant who received “one” talent was holding a great deal of his master’s money. In the parable, nobody receives a trivial amount. The smallest portion is still a serious trust.
The master distributed the money “to every man according to his several ability.” He knew his servants. He did not give the same amount to all of them, and he did not expect the same return from all of them. The difference in amount reflected their capacity, and said nothing about their worth. Some people in the church carry large, visible responsibilities. Others carry small, quiet ones. The parable suggests that the Master has thought about it.
Then notice the word “straightway.” In the King James Version it sits at the end of verse 15, describing the master’s departure, but the next verse shows the servants moving just as quickly: “Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same.” The faithful servants began immediately. They did not wait to be told what reward would follow. They did not negotiate terms. They simply took what had been entrusted to them and put it to work, because it was their master’s and it mattered to him.
That is the posture this teaching is commending. The faithful servants did not know about any reward until the master returned. They were faithful first. The reward came afterwards as a surprise.
“A few things”
After a long time, the master came back to settle accounts:
After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
Read the master’s words carefully: “thou hast been faithful over a few things.” He says this to the servant who had five talents and made five more. Ten talents was an enormous fortune. And the master calls it “a few things.”
That should reshape how we think about the size of anything we carry. From the Master’s point of view, every responsibility we hold is “a few things.” The pastor of a large congregation, the director of a big ministry and the woman phoning one widow on Thursday evenings are all handling “a few things” compared with what belongs to Him. Nobody’s portion impresses Him by its size. What He looks for in each of us is the same: faithfulness.
Notice too that both faithful servants receive exactly the same words. “Well done, good and faithful servant... enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” The two-talent servant does not receive a smaller commendation. He gained less money, but he was just as faithful with what he had, and the master’s response is identical.
The reward is real. “I will make thee ruler over many things.” Scripture does not pretend that faithfulness goes unrewarded. But the deepest part of the reward is relational: “enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” The servants are invited to share their master’s happiness. The best thing about faithful service is the delight of the One we serve, and the privilege of sharing that delight with Him.
NuggetA small responsibility already matters to the person depending on it. Faithfulness does not need the promise of promotion to make ordinary service worthwhile.
The servant who buried his portion
Then the third servant came:
Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
His failure began with what he believed about his master. “I knew thee that thou art an hard man.” He saw his lord as harsh, demanding and unfair. And that belief produced fear: “I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth.”
This is worth noticing, because many believers who neglect small responsibilities are not lazy in the ordinary sense. They are afraid. They are afraid of getting it wrong, afraid that their contribution is too small to matter, afraid that God is a hard master who will never be satisfied with what they offer. So they bury it. They do nothing, because doing nothing feels safer than doing something imperfectly.
The master’s response is severe, and it should be taken seriously. He calls the servant “wicked and slothful.” But notice what he says next: “Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers.” The master was not asking for anything dramatic. Even the smallest step, putting the money in the bank, would have been enough to show faithfulness. The servant could have done that with very little risk.
That is a word of encouragement for anyone who feels that their small responsibility is too small to bother with. You do not have to do something spectacular. You only have to do what is in front of you. A phone call. A register filled in properly. A promise kept. These are the equivalent of putting the money with the exchangers. They are small, ordinary and faithful.
And there is a deeper encouragement here too. The third servant’s problem was that he misjudged his master. He thought he served a hard man. If you know the Lord Jesus, you know a very different Master. He is the One who said, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He does not despise small offerings. He receives them with joy.
When the reward is not the reason
Jesus told another short parable that seems almost to cut against the promise of reward. He asked His disciples whether a master thanks his servant just for doing what he was told, and concluded, “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).
Jesus is guarding us against entitlement here, without denying reward. Our faithfulness does not put God in our debt. We serve because we belong to Him and because what He has entrusted to us matters. If promotion comes, we receive it with gratitude. If it never comes, the service was still worth doing.
Later in the same chapter as the talents, Jesus describes the final judgement, and He says something remarkable about how the righteous will respond:
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
The righteous are surprised. “Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee?” They had not been doing these things in order to be rewarded. They had not even realised that what they were doing was being done to Christ. They had simply fed hungry people, welcomed strangers and visited the sick, because people needed it.
And the King says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” The least of these. The small responsibility toward one ordinary, overlooked person is received by Christ as service to Himself. Jesus said the same thing elsewhere: “whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42).
PunchlineA cup of cold water. A Thursday phone call. There is nothing smaller in the whole economy of service. And Christ says it will not be lost.
Notice the order. The person in need comes first. The cup of water matters because someone is thirsty. Christ then honours it as done to Him. He asks us to love the thirsty person for that person’s sake, and He counts that love as given to Him.
Dorcas and the coats
The book of Acts includes a short story about a woman whose faithfulness was entirely made of small things:
Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did. And it came to pass in those days, that she was sick, and died: whom when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber. And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they sent unto him two men, desiring him that he would not delay to come to them. Then Peter arose and went with them. When he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber: and all the widows stood by him weeping, and shewing the coats and garments which Dorcas made, while she was with them.
Dorcas, also called Tabitha, lived in the coastal town of Joppa. Luke describes her simply: she “was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.” She was not an apostle or a preacher. There is no record of her leading anything. What she did was sew. She made coats and garments for the widows of Joppa, women who in that society often had very little support and no one to provide for them.
When Dorcas died, the believers sent urgently for Peter. And when he arrived, he found the upper room full of widows, weeping, “and shewing the coats and garments which Dorcas made, while she was with them.”
That detail is one of the most moving in the New Testament. The widows did not describe her ministry in general terms. They held up the clothes. She made this one for me. She made this for my daughter. She stitched this when my old one fell apart. Each garment was a small thing. Each one had been made for a particular woman who depended on it. And together they told the story of a faithful life.
God raised Dorcas from the dead through Peter’s prayer, and Luke tells us that “many believed in the Lord” as a result (Acts 9:42). But notice what made her death so felt. It was the accumulated weight of small faithfulness, coat after coat, for women who would otherwise have gone without.
That is the kind of legacy small responsibilities build. It may never be noticed by the wider world. But it is deeply felt by the people who depend on it, and it is precious to God.
Found faithful
Paul writes to the Corinthians about how he and other ministers should be regarded:
Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
“It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” The word found suggests an inspection, a moment when the steward’s work is examined and its true quality discovered. What Paul looks for in a steward is reliability, whatever his brilliance or popularity.
Then he says something surprising. He is not greatly concerned about human verdicts on his ministry: “with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you.” He does not even trust his own assessment of himself. “He that judgeth me is the Lord.” Paul has learned to live before an audience of One.
This is very freeing for anyone whose responsibilities are small and unseen. If the only verdict that finally matters is the Lord’s, then the lack of human recognition does not reduce the value of what you do. And Paul adds a promise: the Lord “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.”
That is usually read as a warning, and it is one. But it is also a comfort. The Lord will bring hidden things to light, including the hidden faithfulness that nobody saw: the phone calls, the prayers, the carefully checked figures, the coats sewn for widows. “Then shall every man have praise of God.” The small, faithful work that went unnoticed on earth will receive praise from the One whose praise matters most.
Faithfulness in small things also needs wisdom. It does not mean saying yes to everything until you are exhausted. Part of being faithful is being honest about what you can actually carry. It is better to accept one responsibility and keep it well than to accept five and let four of them fail. “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay” (Matthew 5:37). If you cannot do something, say so clearly and early. If circumstances change, hand the responsibility over properly instead of letting it quietly lapse. Write things down. Keep the neighbour’s number. These are the ordinary tools of faithfulness, and they protect the people who depend on us.
And when you have been unfaithful, as all of us have, do not bury the next talent out of shame. Come back to the Lord, receive His forgiveness, and pick up the responsibility again. His mercies “are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:23). Our faithfulness is always a response to His.
The neighbour’s son answered on the third ring. Adaeze explained who she was and asked him to check on Mama Morenike. He went upstairs with a torch and found the door locked. When there was no answer to his knocking, he and his father forced it open.
Mama Morenike was lying on the bathroom floor. She had slipped that afternoon and broken her hip. She had been lying there, unable to move, for almost six hours. She was cold and frightened, but she was conscious.
They took her to the general hospital that night. Adaeze met them there, with her phone finally charging from a socket in the corridor. She sat by the bed until the old woman was settled. Before Adaeze left, Mama Morenike took her hand and held it tightly.
“I knew it was Thursday,” she said. “I was lying there telling myself, Adaeze will call. She always calls.”
Mama Morenike recovered slowly, and eventually her daughter flew in from Houston to help her move into a safer ground-floor flat. Adaeze still calls her every Thursday. The fellowship has never asked her to coordinate the prayer team. She told me she no longer minds.
“I used to think the phone call was the small thing they gave me because they had nothing bigger,” she said. “Now I know it was the biggest thing in somebody’s week.”
That is faithfulness in little things. Whatever has been entrusted to you this week, however ordinary it seems, someone on the other side of it may be waiting for you to call.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Which of your current responsibilities feel small to you? Who is on the other side of them, depending on you?
- Have you been treating small tasks as a ladder toward something bigger? How has that affected the way you do them?
- The master in the parable called five talents “a few things.” How does that change the way you view the size of your own responsibilities?
- Are you like the third servant in any area, burying something out of fear that it is too small or that you will get it wrong?
- What would it mean for you to live before an audience of One, as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 4?
This Week
Make a list of the small responsibilities you currently carry: at home, at work, in church and among friends. Beside each one, write the name of a person who depends on it. Choose one item from the list that you have been neglecting and do it carefully this week, with that person in mind. If there is a responsibility you cannot carry well, speak honestly to the right person and hand it over properly.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for every responsibility You have entrusted to me, however small it seems. Forgive me for the times I have treated small tasks as stepping stones and neglected the people depending on them. Forgive me for burying what You gave me out of fear. Teach me to see the person on the other side of each task, and to serve them faithfully whether anyone notices or not. Let me find joy in Your joy. Help me to give the cup of cold water, to make the phone call, to keep the small promise. Let me be found faithful when You come. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.