Strive to Be - Small Things Lyrics

Video

Small Things | Music Video

Meaning & Inspiration

The temptation to frame our devotion through the lens of spectacle is a perennial human error. In "Small Things" by Strive to Be, the lyrics capture the frantic impulse of the modern believer: "We want to be first to the fight / To show our faith / Do something great." We treat God like a client who needs to be impressed by our resume of miracles—walking on water, stilling the storm, the public demonstrations of piety that provide social currency.

There is a theological anxiety here that needs to be addressed. We often act as if God’s favor is a mechanism tied to the magnitude of our output. If we perform the "great" thing, He is beholden to acknowledge our sincerity. It is a subtle, works-based meritocracy disguised as zeal.

Yet, the song pivots to a necessary correction: "Maybe all that He really wants / Is something small."

When we consider the Imago Dei, we recognize that human dignity is not located in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary—the mundane, repetitive labor of existence. St. Paul’s instruction in Colossians 3:23—to do everything as if working for the Lord—isn't a call to build cathedrals, but a directive to infuse the domestic and the trivial with the weight of sanctity. The "tiny drops" Leah Campbell sings of are a fitting metaphor for the sanctification process. Sanctification is rarely a singular, explosive event; it is a slow, accumulation of "everyday things."

However, I find myself uneasy with the chorus: "Miracles can happen / Simple things can change us." While the sentiment is well-meaning, it risks reducing the nature of God’s grace. If we suggest that our small actions are the catalyst for miracles, do we inadvertently place the cart before the horse? It is not our "doing" that creates the miracle; it is the fact that God has already acted, definitively and fully, in the Incarnation. God did not start with a grand celestial display to save the world; He started with a zygote, a womb, and a feeding trough. He occupied the "small things" so that the "small things" could be redeemed.

We must be careful not to mistake habit for holiness. Simply doing tasks isn't a theological achievement unless those tasks are tethered to the reality of Christ’s finished work. If we are doing the "small things" to earn favor, we are just busy. If we are doing them as a response to the fact that He has already claimed us, the weight of the universe sits on the washing of a dish or the offering of a prayer.

There is a lingering tension here. We are desperate to be "great," yet we are called to be faithful in the unremarkable. It is an unresolved friction, the struggle between the desire to be seen and the duty to be hidden in Him. Perhaps that is the point. We are not the ones who make miracles happen; we are simply the ones who occupy the space where He chooses to manifest His presence, one drop at a time.