Worthy Brief - September 17, 2026

 Worthy Brief - September 17, 2026

Do not despise the day of small things!

Matthew 13:31-32 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, 32 which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches." 

Following a parable in which an enemy sows tares and the field that won't be sorted until the harvest, Yeshua (Jesus) tells one that takes only two verses. It's a parable about size. The Kingdom, He says, starts out looking like almost nothing. A mustard seed. In Israel, that was a proverb. The rabbis would use the phrase 'like a grain of mustard' just as we say 'the size of a pinhead'. When the Mishnah wished to describe the smallest possible amount of something, it used the mustard seed, chardal (חַרְדָּל). All those present understood precisely what Yeshua meant. The Kingdom the prophets had been waiting for for centuries starts at the smallest size a person can imagine.

The point isn’t that mustard is literally the smallest seed in the world. It’s that everyone saw it as a symbol of something very small. Yeshua wants us to notice the difference between how the Kingdom starts and what it becomes. It may begin so small that it’s easy to miss, but it holds God’s life inside. What seems unimportant at first can become a place of shelter. What starts hidden in the ground can grow into something visible, fruitful, and far-reaching.

That’s how the Kingdom began -- a rabbi from Nazareth and twelve ordinary men. It seemed small and easy to overlook. But Yeshua wasn’t making excuses for it. He was showing them that this is how the Kingdom works. It’s not small by mistake. It’s small on purpose, because God chose to start this way.

When the people of Judah returned from Babylon and started building the second temple, it looked so small compared to Solomon’s that the older men cried. But God spoke through Zechariah and asked, "For who has despised the day of small things?" (Zechariah 4:10). In Hebrew, it’s yom ketanot (יוֹם קְטַנּוֹת), the day of small things. God wasn’t ashamed of that small beginning.

Now think about what the mustard seed becomes. Yeshua says it’s "greater than the herbs" and "becomes a tree." Mustard is usually just a garden plant, a tall shrub, but never a real tree. Yeshua is making the image bigger on purpose. The Kingdom grows beyond what anyone expects. It becomes something the seed never seemed able to be. Then birds come and nest in its branches. That detail matters. Yeshua is alluding to the prophets. Ezekiel described God planting a small cedar branch on Israel’s mountain, where it would become "a majestic cedar, under it will dwell birds of every sort; in the shadow of its branches they will dwell" (Ezekiel 17:23). The birds represent the nations. The small seed planted in Israel was meant to become a shelter for the whole world.

Pay attention to who causes the growth. The man in the story planted the seed, but he didn’t make it grow. The growth comes from the seed itself and from God. Your job isn’t to make things big. It’s to plant what God has given you and not look down on it while it’s small. Don’t judge the seed by how small it looks in your hand. Judge it by how great the King is who planted it. A seed doesn’t need to look like a tree to become one. It just needs to be planted.

Once the seed is planted, there’s a process. It goes into the soil and disappears before it shows up again. It breaks before it grows. It stays hidden before it becomes visible. That’s not failure—that’s growth. Some of what God is doing in you right now is happening out of sight. Just because you can’t see it yet doesn’t mean nothing is happening. It means the seed is doing what seeds are supposed to do.

Don’t judge what God is doing in your life by how big it seems right now. Maybe your prayer meeting has only three people, your ministry is unknown, your faith feels smaller than your doubts, or your calling is hard to say out loud. Heaven doesn’t see any of that as small. Heaven sees a mustard seed, and Heaven knows what mustard seeds can do. The same King who finished the temple in Jerusalem and filled the earth with twelve men is the King who planted what’s in your hands. So plant it, water it, and protect it. Don’t look down on small beginnings, because the God who starts small is also the God who brings great endings. He already sees the birds in your branches.

Your family in the Lord with much agape love,

George & Baht Rivka

Editor's Note: Three books are now available -- https://www.amazon.com/shop/worthy069/list/UQKHCLN0EXMS The Eternal Kingdom Revealed, The Biblical Fall Feasts Revealed, and Identity in Messiah Revealed -- each written to help believers go deeper in Scripture, understand God’s purposes more clearly, and walk more faithfully with Yeshua (Jesus). If you’ve already purchased and read any of them, I’d be very grateful if you would take a moment to leave an honest review on Amazon. Every review tells a new reader, “This book is worth your time,” and helps put its message in front of someone who may need it.