"mite" moments

I have been listening to a talk by one of my favorite speakers this week, S. Michael Wilcox.  It is called, "Seeing as God Sees" and one of my favorite segments in the talk is about "mite moments".  I have transcribed it here.

God sees the importance of the smallest acts.  He does not underestimate their value.  They are what I call “mite moments”.  There are many mite moments in all of our lives.  I get the phrase “mite moments” from the time when Jesus was standing in the temple and he looked up and he saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. 

  And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.  And he said, “…of a truth I say unto you that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all, for all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God and she of a ….hath casting all of the living she had.”   

I have heard President Hinckley talk about a widow’s mite that he has on his credenza that he looks at frequently to remind him to be careful with the tithing funds.  I don’t think that widow had any idea that even Jesus was watching her.  That he had made a remark about her.  I think she walked into the treasury, put in her two mites and walked out unaware that two thousand years of history would watch her, that she would be an inspiration to future Prophets.  We never know the impact of tiny mite moments in our lives.  But God sees those impacts. 

May I give you an example or two?  I remember one day coming into primary and the primary chorister said, “children, I am going to teach you a new song- (that was one the thing I liked in primary was the singing)-and she said, “I will sing it for you and then you sing it with me.”  And she sang, “The golden plates lay hidden, deep in a mountain side, until God found one worthy in whom he could confide.”  And her voice clear and high and beautiful took me to Cummorah.  And I could see Joseph walking up the hill and rolling the stone off and I KNEW it happened.  And I wanted to be a good boy so God could confide in me too.   I don’t know the name of that primary chorister.  She has no idea that the foundation of my love for the Prophet, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon lay in her voice.  It was a mite moment.

When I was twelve years old a Stake President called me, I was a brand new deacon.  He said, “Mike I want you to give the opening prayer in stake conference.”  I was terrified but I said, “okay”.  I was a little tiny short kid.  I looked about eight.  They had to lower the pulpit all the way down.  When you’re a deacon you don’t want to stand on the little bench thing.  I remember standing there to give that prayer and barely being able to look over the top of it.  And I’m sure I just gave an ordinary, normal prayer.  Ten years later I was home from a mission.  A sister came up to me and she said, “Mike, I need to thank you.  You changed my life and I’ve never told you.”  And I said, “I can’t remember ever having done anything for you.”  “And she said you probably won’t remember this but when you were a little boy you gave an opening prayer in a stake conference”  I said, “I remember that!”.  She said, “I was struggling with my testimony at the time.  I did not think God listened to my prayers anymore.  And I came to Stake Conference and I saw a boy pray and I heard a boy pray and it wasn’t anything he said.  It was just the image.  It was just the picture of a boy praying and the sense that I had inside that the boy believed that someone was listening to him.  And it reawakened all my belief in God that I had as a little girl.  And the crisis was over.  You changed my life.  Now, did I change that woman’s life? No.  I said a prayer in stake conference.  But it was a mite moment and in God’s hands he sees the importance of the smallest acts.

 

Jacob said that the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment and their righteousness.  I think that might mean that in the hereafter we will know how all of our actions righteously impacted everybody else, which thing we don’t know now.