Lisa Hensley

For about a year I’ve been contemplating my spot on the internet. Why am I here? Do I need to be here? I watched amazing people do things I love on the internet and knew that the world didn’t need me to do that thing too.

During that same year, I’ve consistently needed the same message in my life. Do not quit. Keep going. Be faithful in the small things. I also discovered that everyone else seems to need that same message. I have Voxer conversations with my friends about how we spend our time reminding ourselves that all this small work matters. I hear people on podcasts say that quitting is the big temptation that they face. I post on Instagram and people across all categories say they struggle to remember it too: the little things are the big things. We know it, but it’s hard to live it well.

Here’s what I keep telling myself: I can’t quit. Can I be honest? Quitting often sounds really awesome. And while there is a part of me that is tired and wants to quit, there is a little whisper, deep down, that reminds me that it’s imperative that I do not quit. That I do it all again today. That I refocus my attention to these little things, these least things, and how I’m doing them.

I finished reading Leviticus last week. If there’s a book in the Bible that Christians want to avoid reading, it’s Leviticus. Or maybe Ezekiel. I actually loved reading Leviticus this year in my chronological reading. (That’s my favorite way to read the Old Testament.) This is not a theological study that I’m offering here. I simply want us to all know that the Bible is for us: the plain, everyday believer. Actually, we are all the same kind of believer; there’s no hierarchy in the faith (2 Peter 1:1).

God has done a lot of work in my heart, teaching me who He is and how His Word connects together. I’ve shown up for that too. I’ve put in a lot of work to get to a place where a few of the layers of Leviticus makes sense to me. It’s taken work to be able to read Leviticus with awe of how God reaches out for humanity.

I want to start there because often we tell a story that reading and understanding the Bible is easy. That you simply show up (which is most of the battle) and it all falls into place and it isn’t ever confusing or hard to process. That has not been my experience. It has been my experience that it is worth the effort and that small work done frequently will pay off in the long run.

Let’s start somewhere besides Leviticus and make a few points that drastically affect what we’re reading.