Genesis 18:27, “Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.”
On my window sill, near the far corner is a small pile of dust. What if it was more than a pile of fine dust but an actual city? A miniature, thriving metropolis too small to see with the unassisted eye. i figure, in a way, i live in Dust City, but to be more accurate, i actually live in the slums of Dust City where the small dust lives. Yes.
i live in the outer rings of Dust City, where the small dust settles—the kind of places that never make the maps, the corners the wind forgets to sweep. That is real. The edges are real. The smallness is real.
And still YHWH bends down.
Not with thunder. Not with a throne that demands you climb up. He leans in close enough that the distance between eternity and a cracked sidewalk disappears. Mmm, so close. He smiles at me with a smile as wide as eternity, like someone who has all the time in the world can smile, and He asks the simplest question in the universe: “Wanna’ get coffee?” So if He is asking, the only thing left to do is answer. “Yes, I’d like that”, i say. The table is already set at the edge of town.
As i read that back i feel a certain delight in God rising in my chest. Wow! And i, the small dust at the edge of the scale do know and will know Jesus. i cannot know Him through someone else’s encounter. i will know Him not through the visionary dreams i often have, but through close encounter and through the Word of God. i will get to know His offices and attributes, His drives and reservations. i get to know what kind of ice cream He likes, what’s His favorite tree, and maybe He’ll tell me if i have relatives among the star dust in the universe. Incredible though, i, the small dust, yes i, get to know the King of the Universe and i think that’s amazing. i don’t have titles or book deals, no invitations to speak anywhere, i really don’t have anything, in my opinion, God would want, but yet He loves me and wants to hang out, skip stones, and go on walks together.
And that right there, yep, that is the whole scandal and the whole comfort. The God who named the stars by number also knows the name of the dust that thought it was too far out to matter, people of little weight on the world’s scales of status, usefulness, or value. The small dust at the edge of everything. He does not wait for you to become cleaner dust, or bigger dust, or dust that finally lives in the better part of town. He meets you where the small dust lives, and He treats the invitation like it is the most natural thing in the world. We, the dust-people, are not defined by our low estate, but by the fact that the Risen Jesus has declared us worth His blood and places Himself in our place.
From what i can see and hear of God, the value of dust matters because it becomes the stage on which His power, mercy, and faithfulness are displayed. He does not need impressive material. He chooses the dust so that no one can boast. Dust matters to God. Why? Because He made it, He remembers it, He lifts it, He identifies with it, and He is glorified through it. The world’s measurement of worth is not how God measures value. What looks like nothing on human scales is often the very thing He chooses to use.
Jesus does not merely notice “the least of these”. Oh no, God goes to the utmost for the least, the lost, and left behind — He identifies Himself with those like me, small dust.
Matthew 25:40, “Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” Through out the gospels, Jesus continually demonstrates that “dust-level” people are not peripheral to Him, but are actually pretty central to the revelation of who He is.
And who are “dust-level people,” you might ask? I say they are those the world ranks as insignificant, overlooked, or disposable—yet who are central to God’s heart and purposes. Dust-level people are the overlooked-ones, low-ranked, ash-heap dwellers in forgotten corners, many are weightless and discarded, living brilliant lives before the Lord in the fringes, the left overs, and doing the calling of God while practicing life in the margins.
So much of the industrial Church model in our country makes a face so as to appear to help the small dust at the edge of their sanctuaries, but it rarely amounts to much more than their need to gain a following and shape a response. Matthew 25:40 shows that when we feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, or visit the sick and the prisoner—those are acts done to people the world often treats as mere dust in the window sill—Jesus receives those acts as done directly to Himself. He does not merely notice them… on Calvary He placed Himself in their place.
God calls us who are the small dust valuable. He says we’re not a side concern or an optional ministry focus. We sit close to the center of God’s revealed heart. What the world calls dust, Jesus calls His own. We are the small dust at the city’s ragged edge—Dust City’s forgotten corners where the Least sleep under broken signs, the Lost wander without names, and the Left Behind keep watch huddled around dying fires. Yet we have seen ourselves in the scars of the Risen Saviors. He called us worth the blood, worth the empty tomb. So, we stay, unashamed. Here among the ash and the overlooked, we live as those already raised—small dust still, but shining. God’s glory is shown in the transformation of the lowly. Psalm 113:7-8, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.”
The same Creator who numbers the stars also remembers that we are dust, Psalm 103:14. We are not accidental or discarded material, what God makes, He values. Dust represents the humble, the powerless, and those of low estate. The “small dust” at the edge of the city—the least, the lost, and the left behind—may be dismissed by society, yet they’re perceived worthlessness does not determine their value before the One who weighs all things.
The symbology of the value of dust is this: God chooses what is low, fragile, and overlooked in order to display His own glory, mercy, and power. He forms life from dust, remembers those who are dust, raises the dust-born to honor, seeks the lost among the dust, and identifies Himself with “the least of these.” In the resurrection hope, even those who return to dust will be raised in glory, 1 Corinthians 15:42–49. Dust therefore points beyond itself—to the Creator who does not abandon what He has made, and to the Redeemer who turns the small dust of Dust City into living witnesses of grace.
The “small dust” at the edge of the city and the “dust of the earth” that fills the promise of Genesis 13:16 are not two different substances—they are the same dust, viewed from different angles. One angle shows our need; the other shows His power to multiply, redeem, and keep covenant even with those the world counts as nothing. Friend, if you think you’re too small for God to use, how small is too small? God counts even the dust as part of His appointment and Kingdom. C’mon, small dust was God’s idea. He made it. What He creates, He claims. He remembers it. God does not forget the fragile or the overlooked. He raises it. Small dust becomes the stage on which His power and compassion are displayed. He identifies with it. The Risen Jesus does not merely notice small dust; He stands with it and in it. He multiplies it. Small dust is not a dead end; it is the starting point of abundance in His hands. The small dust at the edge of the city carries the weight of divine attention, affection, and purpose.
In short, “the dust of the earth”, like me, reminds the world that the very people who appear most ordinary or insignificant are the ones God has chosen to make innumerable and to carry His promises and standards forward.
Maybe you live in town where the tall people live among those who buff their shoes to a high shine in the light of their own faces, but, honestly, i just get lost down town, and out here in the small places where the small dust lives, practicing my koinonia with dust-level people, life is brilliant and full of God’s presence.
What do you think?
i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries