Think small May 11, 2011  I know so many folks who have big dreams. Big hopes. Big ideas. But they're convinced that they can't do what God's put in their hearts to do because "other people" won't cooperate. The "powers that be" whoever they are, won't green light the project or write the grant or pony up with funds or get behind the vision. So the dreamers keep dreaming, but after a while the dream that used to seem like a sweet and tantalizing savor becomes a hard, bitter lump of resentment and regret. And eventually, those dreams wither. They turn in on themselves and get smaller and meaner, and can actually hurt more for their holding than releasing them might.
I have two words for dreamers. Think small. I started writing this devotional nearly eight years ago, with fewer than 25 people (all of them friends) on the receiving end. I started because I knew in my heart God meant for me to, and that He didn't much care whether I thought it was a big enough beginning, or not. I'm a writer. And writers write. Every book I've ever loved has felt as if it was written just for me. I'm sure the authors of those books imagined thousands of people loving (and buying) them, but books are read by one person-one very real person-at a time. The first book I ever bought with my own money (still on my shelf) was a Whitman Children's Classic called Beautiful Joe. I bought it at a dime store in Corpus Christi, Texas, and read it in my room at 203 Driftwood in Portland, Texas, crying through most of it. (To find out why, and what it taught me, read The Beautiful Ache, written nearly 35 years later.) I started teaching over 25 years ago...in my own living room. I invited half a dozen friends over to study the Bible together, offered to "lead," and never looked back. Those friends invited friends, and, although there were never more than a dozen or so of us in the room at any given time, we kept it up for seven years of Monday nights. Those were some of the sweetest teaching experiences of my life. Today I might teach a few hundred folks or more and travel far from home to do so, even being paid for what I consider a privilege, but there's no place I'd rather teach than the last downstairs room on the right at 3150 Yellowstone Boulevard, on any Sunday morning of the year. On a "big" Sunday, there might be 30 of us-but don't be fooled: important things happen in that little room. And usually, it's the teacher that learns more than anyone else. I can't know what God has called you to. But if you belong to Him, He's gifted you, put dreams in your heart, and equipped you to be His man or woman in the place He's set you down. You're not where you are by mistake. Don't be afraid to think small. The greatest kingdom the world has ever known started with a seed too small to for the naked eye to see (Luke 1:31-33). And oh, what a glorious kingdom it is and will ever be! We've been fooled by the numbers game. By bestsellers and mega-ministries and super-sized galas and star-studded donor lists. We don't have to be the biggest, or the best-known, or the most-followed. We simply have to be faithful where we are. Has God put His desire in your heart? I hope so. Defy the world today: dream big, and think small. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:6-10, NIV) |
Three days past Mother's Day, I feel like I need to explain. I've been busy. Just not doing what most of my precious friends have done. These "babies" are no match for theirs...but in some ways they're similar. I nurtured them, then let them go, and prayed they find their way in the great big world. 
They are (in no particular order!) 