In Horton Hears a Who, Horton the elephant has to prove to the other animals in the forest that there truly is a town on the small tuft of clover he’s carrying around. He asks the entire town to make a noise because the other animals can’t hear them (that dang kangaroo …). The entire town makes the biggest racket they could, all except for a small Who named Jo-Jo. The mayor convinces Jo-Jo to participate and Jo-Jo lets out a “Yopp!”

“And that Yopp … That one small, extra Yopp put it over! Finally, at last! From that speck on that clover Their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean. And the elephant smiled. ‘Do you see what I mean? … They’re proven they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the Smallest of All!’” - Dr. Seuss

Aside from being a great story, Horton Hears a Who does teach us something that we can apply to our spiritual lives as well. Often we consider ourselves spiritually insignificant, or worse, we find excuses to leave helping and serving others to someone else. The bottom line is both of those attitudes are unhelpful and wrong. We all have skills and resources that we can use to serve others and the Church. Not only should we, but the Bible even shows us examples of how. Specifically, there’s an account in the book of Acts that we can focus on.

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Acts 6:1–7

There was a group of widows in the early church that was being overlooked, primarily because they spoke a different language. These Hellenistic believers spoke Greek instead of Hebrew and most of the church leaders did not. Up until then, the church was leaving all the decision making and heavy lifting to the apostles and leaders. It was exhausting and didn’t leave them the time or energy to do what God had called them to do, namely preach the word and increase the church. The solution was to appoint people to oversee helping the Hellenistic widows. They needed to be “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom,” but they also needed to speak the right language! Not only were these men able to meet this specific need, but Luke (the author of Acts) said that because of their work, “The word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly.” Some might think that taking care of widows is a small job. It’s certainly not the up-front, glamour position. But we see that it is still significant in building the kingdom of God. Of course, this principle can be applied to so many things, especially when we think about meeting the needs of others. Sure it can be taxing, and might even be thankless, but it’s so meaningful to the lives of those in need AND to the building of the kingdom. And we can remember what Jesus said as well, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) By Rob Trahan