“For who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).
“Gad” means “a troop or an army cometh” (Gen. 30:11). Gad was the first son of mother Zilpah, but Leah
believed that a troop was following after him. She saw something great in that which was seemingly small.
We also should learn to look far beyond the small beginning and see the great things that will take place
later. For example in John 4:3 we read that the Lord Jesus Christ left Judea for Galilee. There were two
roads to Galilee. One via Samaria and other via mount Carmel. The Jews would never go via Samaria (John
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4:9) but the Lord Jesus Christ wanted to go through Samaria. The Lord said to His disciples, “I have decided
to go through Samaria”, but they replied, “Why go that way? Who will give us food to eat and water to
drink?” The Scripture says, “he must needs go through Samaria”. What was the reason? For the sake of
one woman He went there and the whole of Samaria was shaken. Through one soul, He won the whole
country (John 4:39; Acts 8:5-8).
We think that the Lord works more through big crowds. That is not God’s way. Through small things, He
does great things. One day a man came in tears to see us. He said, “Please pray for my wife, she is very
ill.” He was a Hindu. We went to see her, gave a short message then prayed and left. The Lord healed that
woman and through her husband many people came to the Lord in that area. On another occasion, a lady
came to see me in Madras. She said to me, “Please pray for my husband, he is very, very sick in the
hospital. The doctors are not able to cure him.” We spent only a few minutes with them in prayer, gave
a short message and came away. Afterwards, the whole family which was from Hyderabad came for
fellowship. In the year 1950 they wrote to me, requesting me to go to Hyderabad and that is how the Lord
began to work in that city through a small thing, not through great things. That is what we learn from Gad.