Small But Mite(y)
On my prayer walk today, I thought a lot about the widow who gave all she had …
I thought about her life, her story, and the fact that perception is everything.
We live in an upside down KINGdom.
And I heard this phrase in my spirit, “It’s only mites to them … but it’s mighty to Him.”
A song and a blog post were birthed.
A Different System
Jesus was sitting across from the temple treasury, watching.
One by one, people came and gave their offerings. Mark tells us that many who were rich “put in much.”
Then came a poor widow.
She put in two mites.
It would have been easy to overlook her. Easy to overlook her offering. Compared to everything being given around her, what she placed into the treasury must have seemed almost insignificant.
But Jesus saw something entirely different.
And what He said next reveals something profound about the way God measures what we give.
“Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”
Mark 12:43–44 NKJV
She gave less.
Yet Jesus said she gave more. ←
How can both be true?
Because heaven uses a different measuring system.
The Smallest Coin
There is something hidden in the language of this story that makes it even more powerful.
What older English translations call a “mite” is the Greek word lepton (plural, lepta). The word carries the idea of something small, thin, or slight, and the lepton was the smallest denomination of coin commonly circulating in Judea.
In other words, she didn't just give a little.
She literally gave what was called little.
Two tiny coins.
An amount that could have looked almost meaningless next to the large offerings being deposited by wealthy people around her.
Still, Jesus called it big.
Perspective.
People Saw the Amount. Jesus Saw the Cost.
If you had been standing beside that treasury, you could have counted the coins. You could have compared amounts. You could have made a list from the largest offering to the smallest, and this widow would have been at the bottom.
But Jesus wasn't measuring what everyone else was measuring.
People could see the amount.
Jesus could see the cost.
People saw two tiny coins.
Jesus saw everything she had.
The wealthy gave out of their abundance. There was still plenty left after their offering was given. But the widow gave “all that she had, her whole livelihood.” Mathematically, she had not given more. But heaven wasn't doing the same math.
Jesus wasn't merely measuring the monetary value of what went into the treasury. He was revealing the value of what had been surrendered, the value of her heart.
And suddenly those two tiny lepta weren't so little anymore.
They were mite(y).
God Knows What It Cost You
This principle reaches far beyond money.
What seems small to one person can be enormous to God because the person observing the offering rarely knows what it cost the person giving it.
Someone may take one small step of obedience that nobody notices. God knows what they had to overcome to take it.
Someone may whisper a five-word prayer while someone else prays eloquently for an hour. We hear the hour, but God knows the surrender contained in those five words.
Someone may give what looks like a small amount of money, time, courage, forgiveness, generosity, faith, or love. From the outside, someone could look at it and think: That's not much.
But they don't know what you had to begin with.
They don't know what you have left.
They don't know the fear you had to overcome.
They don't know the faith it required.
They don't know the story behind what you just placed in God's hands.
We see the offering. God sees the sacrifice.
Jesus Noticed Her
Maybe one of the most beautiful parts of this story is simply this:
Jesus noticed her.
Her offering wasn't large enough to impress the crowd. It didn't command attention. She could have quietly dropped those two tiny coins into the treasury and disappeared into the crowd without anyone remembering she had ever been there.
But Jesus saw her.
Not only did He see her … He called His disciples over. Something had just happened that Jesus didn't want them to miss. The woman everyone else could have overlooked had just demonstrated something worth stopping for. The offering that looked insignificant became the offering Jesus used to teach generations about generosity, sacrifice, faith, and the heart of God.
Think about that.
Two thousand years later, we are still talking about her two little coins.
What looked small wasn't small at all.
Don't Despise What Is in Your Hand
We live in a world that constantly invites comparison.
Someone has more money.
Someone has a bigger platform.
Someone has more influence.
Someone can give more.
Someone can do more.
Someone's contribution looks more impressive than yours.
And if we're not careful, we can begin to believe that because what we have is small compared to what someone else has, it must also be small to God.
The widow's story tells us otherwise.
God is not asking you to give what someone else has. He is looking at what you have been entrusted with and what happens in your heart when you obey Him and place it in His hands.
So don't despise the small thing.
Don't dismiss the quiet act of obedience.
Don't assume the prayer nobody heard didn't matter.
Don't believe the gift nobody applauded went unnoticed.
And don't measure another person's offering by what you can see.
You don't know what it cost them.
God does.
He knows the resources they started with.
He knows what remains after they give.
He knows the obedience behind it.
He knows the faith required.
He knows the sacrifice.
He knows the cost.
What looks small on earth can carry tremendous weight in heaven.
Sometimes what seems little to us is enormous to Him.
Two mites to them.
Mighty to Him.