Little Things

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10AM Sunday Worship Service / 11:15AM Sunday Pastor's class / 630PM Wednesday Bible Study

by: Dave Anderson

10/07/2024

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Little Things


There were many secret missions during the Civil War – some succeeded and some failed. Two of the missions that failed, although only in small ways, ended up having a great impact on the outcome of the war.  Small things are easy to overlook, or if noticed, even easy to be neglected on purpose.

     The first of the two missions occurred during the Union siege of Petersburg, Virginia.  The commanders suggested to General Grant that a tunnel should be dug to allow the placement of kegs of gunpowder underneath the Confederate fortification.  The plan required a tunnel 511 feet long which was beyond the ventilation technology of the day.  Though skeptical, Gen. Grant gave his approval and the project went forward with an ingenious, though simple, solution to the ventilation challenge. (They made a campfire in the tunnel to produce hot air that would rise through an upward shaft and suck fresh air into the tunnel.)  After filling the tunnel with 320 kegs (8,000 lbs.) of gunpowder, the Union Army set off an explosion that proved to be the biggest in North American history up to that time.  Leaving a crater 170 feet across, 80 feet wide and 30 feet deep, the blast instantly killed over 300 Confederates.  Even though the Northern Army had the element of surprise and an unprecedented destructive explosion, they eventually suffered 5,300 casualties and lost the battle.  The battle swung on a small detail that had been neglected in the planning.  Brig. Gen. James Ledlie had failed to tell the soldiers to go around the crater, rather than through it.  Descending into the crater created a huge delay in their attack, and allowed the  Confederates to re-gather and pick off the Union soldiers still in the crater.  Historians tell us that if the North would have won this battle the Civil War would have ended a year earlier.  

     The other mission involved four southern spies embedded in New York City with forty vials of liquid phosphorus.  Their plan was to start simultaneous fires in fifteen hotels along Broadway which would result in the torching of New York City.  There was no way the fire department would be capable of reaching all fifteen fires.  Once exposed to oxygen, liquid phosphorus produces a fire extremely difficult to extinguish, and New York was basically a tinder box.  The spies succeeded in starting the fires and the city fell into a panic as the fire bells rang up and down Broadway. The plan worked perfectly except for one small detail.  The men failed to leave the windows open.  This oversight deprived the fires of the great amounts of oxygen required by the phosphorus.  By closing the windows and doors as they left the rooms, the spies had ensured that all the fires would do was produce a lot of smoke before hotel workers could extinguish them.  If the windows had been left open, most of New York City would have burned to the ground, the North would have been crippled and the tide of the war would have dramatically turned in favor of the South. 

     Little things can make a big difference.  Sometimes we take shortcuts in life while being drawn towards the path of least resistance.  We focus on the big aspects of our assignments and overlook the little ones.   They appear either too bothersome or seem too insignificant.  The Christian life, however, is built brick by brick, one principle at a time, in small increments.  We continue to become more like Christ over time as we develop traits of His character through patience, discipline and obedience.  There is no quick and easy path to spiritual depth and maturity.  When we neglect daily Bible reading, prayer, and practical application of Biblical truth we don’t just fail to grow, we become weaker.  Even if we are avoiding the BIG pitfalls and sins, the little ones are all around us – attaching themselves to us like sandburs on our socks.  If you want to succeed in the daily mission of living for God, don’t just focus on imposing obstacles and over-arching principles, but meditate on the building blocks of faithful living – a surrendered heart, contrite spirit and obedient life.


2 Pet. 1:5-8

… Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Little Things


There were many secret missions during the Civil War – some succeeded and some failed. Two of the missions that failed, although only in small ways, ended up having a great impact on the outcome of the war.  Small things are easy to overlook, or if noticed, even easy to be neglected on purpose.

     The first of the two missions occurred during the Union siege of Petersburg, Virginia.  The commanders suggested to General Grant that a tunnel should be dug to allow the placement of kegs of gunpowder underneath the Confederate fortification.  The plan required a tunnel 511 feet long which was beyond the ventilation technology of the day.  Though skeptical, Gen. Grant gave his approval and the project went forward with an ingenious, though simple, solution to the ventilation challenge. (They made a campfire in the tunnel to produce hot air that would rise through an upward shaft and suck fresh air into the tunnel.)  After filling the tunnel with 320 kegs (8,000 lbs.) of gunpowder, the Union Army set off an explosion that proved to be the biggest in North American history up to that time.  Leaving a crater 170 feet across, 80 feet wide and 30 feet deep, the blast instantly killed over 300 Confederates.  Even though the Northern Army had the element of surprise and an unprecedented destructive explosion, they eventually suffered 5,300 casualties and lost the battle.  The battle swung on a small detail that had been neglected in the planning.  Brig. Gen. James Ledlie had failed to tell the soldiers to go around the crater, rather than through it.  Descending into the crater created a huge delay in their attack, and allowed the  Confederates to re-gather and pick off the Union soldiers still in the crater.  Historians tell us that if the North would have won this battle the Civil War would have ended a year earlier.  

     The other mission involved four southern spies embedded in New York City with forty vials of liquid phosphorus.  Their plan was to start simultaneous fires in fifteen hotels along Broadway which would result in the torching of New York City.  There was no way the fire department would be capable of reaching all fifteen fires.  Once exposed to oxygen, liquid phosphorus produces a fire extremely difficult to extinguish, and New York was basically a tinder box.  The spies succeeded in starting the fires and the city fell into a panic as the fire bells rang up and down Broadway. The plan worked perfectly except for one small detail.  The men failed to leave the windows open.  This oversight deprived the fires of the great amounts of oxygen required by the phosphorus.  By closing the windows and doors as they left the rooms, the spies had ensured that all the fires would do was produce a lot of smoke before hotel workers could extinguish them.  If the windows had been left open, most of New York City would have burned to the ground, the North would have been crippled and the tide of the war would have dramatically turned in favor of the South. 

     Little things can make a big difference.  Sometimes we take shortcuts in life while being drawn towards the path of least resistance.  We focus on the big aspects of our assignments and overlook the little ones.   They appear either too bothersome or seem too insignificant.  The Christian life, however, is built brick by brick, one principle at a time, in small increments.  We continue to become more like Christ over time as we develop traits of His character through patience, discipline and obedience.  There is no quick and easy path to spiritual depth and maturity.  When we neglect daily Bible reading, prayer, and practical application of Biblical truth we don’t just fail to grow, we become weaker.  Even if we are avoiding the BIG pitfalls and sins, the little ones are all around us – attaching themselves to us like sandburs on our socks.  If you want to succeed in the daily mission of living for God, don’t just focus on imposing obstacles and over-arching principles, but meditate on the building blocks of faithful living – a surrendered heart, contrite spirit and obedient life.


2 Pet. 1:5-8

… Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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