If you can't be faithful in the small things, then you certainly can't be relied on in the big things. How many would love God to entrust to you something significant? We would all like that! How many would like to be promoted? We would all like that! Listen, promotion comes when there's faithfulness at the current level. If you can't be faithful in one task, then you're not faithful at all.
It's unlimited, your possibility to be faithful. Think about the small things you can do at home. Think about your responsibilities at home. God is watching all of that stuff! Think about the responsibilities you have in your life; there are bills to pay, on time. If you give a commitment - keep the commitment! If you can't keep it, then you negotiate your way out, by arrangement. It's integrity! These are things that you can do.
If you've got a little job, then do it well, as though it's the most important job in the whole world. If you need to make a plate of scones for some outing, then make the best ones you've ever made. Make them big, make them great, plenty of butter, plenty of jam on them, so people go whoa! Look at that!
It's understanding faithfulness. A faithful person is hard to find. It's hard to find people who give their word, and keep it; who will actually take a small task, and do it diligently. Do you know what happens? When you find a person who is functioning faithfully in a little task, you can't just leave them there. You can't! They're too good for that little task, so you've got to bring them up! That's how promotion takes place, and God said these words.
He said: I have seen among the children of Jesse, a son - a king! He saw a king. We look, and just see a young little red-faced boy, with bright eyes, smiling, plays a guitar, just sits out there in the country, wasting his time - what kind of use is he? When they have the party, and call the prophet in, they don't even consider to bring him in; but God said: I have seen a king!
What did He see? He saw a heart devoted to worship Him. He saw a man who was faithful! The place of obscurity, the place where no one sees you, and no one knows you, you're not important, just another face in the crowd… that's the place where you learn to develop a heart that seeks God, and faithfulness in little matters. So, put your hand up, and say: count me in! I will do this job - I will be there, and I will do it well. You’re preparing yourself for big things.
The third thing that you develop, in that place of obscurity, is: courage in the face of conflict!
1 Samuel 17:33-37 – “Saul said to David: you're not able to go and fight this Philistine. You're a young boy, and he is a man of war, from his youth. But David said to Saul: your servant… (notice his language - he's been serving in secret, so he calls himself a servant)… used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock, I went after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it rose against me I caught it by its beard and struck and killed it. Your servant killed both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion, and the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
David faced conflict in the little job. He just had a handful of sheep, but there were wild animals that would come. One of the roles of the shepherd was not just to care for the sheep, look after them, clean them up, keep them looking good, de-bug them... It wasn't just that! If something come against it, to kill it, then he had to do something!