file: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db940922.txt
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OUR DAILY BREAD                       Thurs., September 22, 1994
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READ: Exodus 23:20-33


                       "LITTLE BY LITTLE!"

         "Little by little I will drive them out from 
           before you, until you have increased, and 
                      you inherit the land."

                           Exodus 23:30

When I was a little girl, my mother gave me her prized "reader" to 
help me learn, just as it had helped her years earlier. I loved 
one particular story, never dreaming how much it would affect me 
years later.

It was about a little boy with a small shovel. He was trying to 
clear a pathway through deep, new-fallen snow in front of his 
house. A man paused to observe the child's enormous task. "Little 
boy," he inquired, "how can someone as small as you expect to 
finish a task as big as this?" The boy looked up and replied 
confidently "Little by little, that's how!" And he continued 
shoveling.

God awakened the seed of that story at a time when I was 
recovering from a breakdown. I remember how my "adult" self 
taunted the weak "child" within me: "How can someone as inadequate 
as you expect to surmount so great a mountain as this?" That 
little boy's reply became my reply: "Little by little, that's 
how!" And I did overcome -- by depending on God. But it was one 
small victory after another.

The obstacles facing Israel as they considered claiming the land 
God had promised them must have seemed insur- mountable. But He 
didn't ask them to do it all at once. 

"Little by little" is an effective strategy for victory. 

--Joanie E. Yoder

He does not lead me year by year,
Not even day by day;
But step by step my path unfolds --
My Lord directs my way.

-Ryberg

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
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Trust God to move your mountain, but keep on digging. 

THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Ezekiel 37-39

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