Small Steps Create Big Shifts

Lent has a way of inviting us to slow down. Each year we hear the familiar invitations: pray a little more, reflect a little deeper, give something up, or give a little more. Sometimes it can sound as though Lent is asking us to make dramatic changes all at once. But in truth, the most lasting change usually begins much more quietly.

It begins with small steps.

A short prayer before the day begins.
Taking a moment to pause instead of rushing on.
Choosing generosity when we might otherwise hold back.
Offering encouragement, patience, or kindness where it is needed.

On their own, these things may feel quite small. Yet over time they begin to shift something within us. They gently change the direction of our hearts.

Small steps really do make big shifts.

Fr Steven recently reminded us of something simple but important: we need to keep looking up. Lent is not meant to be a season where we spend all our time looking down—at our shortcomings, our worries, or the things we wish we had done differently. Instead, it is a time to lift our eyes.

Looking up to God.
Looking up to hope.
Looking ahead to the future.

When we begin to look up like this, even the small things we do start to feel different. Our prayers, our acts of generosity, and the ways we care for one another become part of something larger than ourselves.

There is a powerful example of this in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a conscientious Christian and outspoken pastor in Germany during the Second World War. He spoke out against the Nazi regime and for this spent his final years in a prison cell. Yet even there, he continued to write about hope, faith, and the presence of God in daily life. In one of his reflections he wrote:

“The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them.”

Even in the darkness of prison, Bonhoeffer kept looking for the presence of God in the ordinary moments of each day—in friendship, in conversation, in prayer, and in the small acts of faithfulness that sustained hope. His life reminds us that faith is often lived not through dramatic gestures, but through steady, faithful steps.

Giving takes on a new meaning when we think about it this way. Giving is not simply about meeting a need in the moment. It is about believing in what God is doing and what God will continue to do. It is a way of saying, I believe there is more ahead.

And that is exactly where Lent is leading us. The journey always points toward Easter morning—toward the moment when hope breaks through in a way no one expected. The resurrection reminds us that God is always at work bringing new life, often beginning with the smallest of beginnings.

So perhaps this Lent the question is not, What huge change must I make?

Perhaps the question is simply: What small step could I take today?

A prayer.
A kind word.
A gift.
A moment of trust.

Taken together, these small steps can move us further than we realise.

And as we continue this Lenten journey, may we keep doing what Fr Steven encourages us to do: look up—toward God, toward hope, and toward the future that God is quietly unfolding before us.