Loving God and our neighbor begins with those under our roof (Deut. 28:1–6; Matt. 22:36–40; Acts 16:31). So do the next small thing at home. Fix supper, wash dishes, bathe kids, rest and relax with those you love. We often talk about discipling our kids and what devotional we use or questions we ask (and we should spend time thinking through these things), but discipleship begins with the small, everyday moments, the things we do out of habit.

My six-year-old daughter has had me watch Frozen 2 hundreds of times. Hundreds. The next, big thing most days—in her mind—is watching that Disney movie once again.

After a climactic twist in the film, the younger princess of Arendelle named Anna, in her grief, implores herself to do the “next right thing.” When she doesn’t know what to do, where to turn, or whether she can go on, she knows she must simply do the “next right thing.”

In our lives, we often feel like we don’t know what God wants us to do, either. To build on a phrase from Frozen 2, sometimes we ought to simply do the next small thing.

The Next Small Thing in Sanctification

As Christians, we know we need to do the right thing. Yet sometimes we don’t recognize the importance of the small things, the everyday moments, the mundane occurrences that make up most of our lives. The next small thing is how we grow deeper in our faith.

In our evangelical subculture, we have been formed to look for the next mountaintop, the next experience, the next great thing that will bring us closer to God. In this pursuit of the climactic, we can miss the power of the ordinary. Our sanctification takes place first and foremost as the work of the Spirit, over time in our mundane, everyday habits and life (Gal. 5:16–17; Eph. 4:23; 2 Pet. 3:18).

Mountaintop experiences bear fruit because of everyday moments—the early mornings spent with Scripture, the quiet moments of prayer, and the sacrifices and love shown when no one else is looking.

The Christian life is not always a mountaintop. It’s more often like a garden. It takes mundane, hard work to tend, to weed, to plant, and to water. It takes patience and time. It takes waiting and trusting God to bring fruit (John 15:5–11; Col. 1:10).

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