A Blob of Dough

Once a week, Mama called our names one-by-one, announcing the time to get up to help her in the bakery. It was always dark outside – and gloomy, I thought. Our job was to help weigh the dough and make bread rolls – eight rolls for each pound of dough. The sooner we got the job done, the sooner we could head back to bed, only to be called forty minutes later to weigh out another batch of bread.

We learned to split the dough into halves, then quarters, then eighths. When the time came to weigh dough for bread loaves, we learned to eye the dough and grab a large hunk. Sometimes all it took to get that dough to the two pound mark was a thumb-tip size piece of dough. If the scale measured over, we learned quickly how much we needed to remove to drop the weight to an even two pounds.

Sometimes I got frustrated because calculating that little glob the right size took more time – and prolonged the time until we were free to go back to bed. I didn’t think it mattered that much – after all, who would know, and who cared about that little bit of a sixteenth of a pound anyhow?

Our mama was an honest businesswoman. The bread label said it was two pounds, and two pounds it would be. She would know, and she cared.

Calculating the Dust

I think about that baby-scale-turned-into-dough-scale when I read the words in Isaiah. I think about my mama’s passion for truth and fairness.  That small glob of dough was not insignificant to her! Plus, her command for truth was founded on Truth.

When we think things are small and insignificant to God, they aren’t. Isaiah tells us that to Him, the nations are as a drop in a bucket. They are counted as the small dust on the scales. To Him, the isles and the grandeur of this world are “a very little thing.”

Yet this same God shepherds us as a shepherd tends to his sheep. This same scripture tells us that He carries the lambs in His bosom, and gently  leads those with young. 

He has a name for every star and every planet. He knows that not one is missing. Our Creator stretches out the Heavens like a curtain. He measures out the mountains on scales and the hills in a balance.

Yet He also renews our strength if we wait on Him. We are significant to Him – yet do we really grasp that fact?

Today, if you are feeling weary, remember that your world matters to Him. Our Creator has named every single star – and He calls them all by name. We might be as a drop in the bucket, but we are important to Him. Not only does He call the stars by name, He numbers the hair on our heads.  He calculates the dust. We matter to Him.

Wherever you are today, may this truth strengthen your heart. May you mount up with wings as an eagle and may you run and not grow weary. May you walk and not faint – because you are important to Him. You matter.

Much more significant than that small glob of dough needed to round out a two-pound loaf of bread, you matter. He does not disregard us or consider us insignificant. Remember that. We are important to a Creator who takes time to calculate the dust. We matter!