I was ten years old when we moved from Pine Beach, New Jersey. To this day, I still claim to be a Jersey Girl, though many have pointed out majority of my life has now taken place in Florida– I guess I’ll just claim both as home.
I wasn’t always happy about this “Floridian status”, and right around the age of thirteen I decided to put together a list of “1,000 Things To Do” in life, with a solution to my Florida residency in mind.
Number 87? “Live somewhere other than Florida for at least 6 months.” Or, if we’re reading between the lines, it should have read, “Lord, please get me out of this Eternally-Overheated State and back to New Jersey, where I belong.“
I can’t help but think God watched me type out those words, save the list to my neon pink floppy disk, and just chuckle to Himself. I imagine Him saying, “Oh dear daughter of mine, just you wait to see where I will take you. With me, you can do so much more.“
In one week, I can officially cross Number 87 off my list. However, my sixth month not living in Florida looks entirely different than anticipated. Instead of the Garden State, I’m covered in dry, rusty-orange colored dirt, teaching Cambodian orphans English, on a sunny, 99-degree February day. If I was told about this moment thirteen years ago, I would have called you insane. Though I may have had desires to do incredible things with my life, I just never dared to dream that any of these things were possible.
I was ready to settle with what I believed to be easy and achievable out of my own personal strengths.
(No offense, New Jersey. I still love you to pieces.)
And that’s just the problem. How often do we look at our lives, have sparks of big dreams well up within us, but then we squander them, thinking we are not capable rather than looking to the One who is?
When we’re seeking after the heart of the Father, we can dream up incredible goals and visions for our lives. What a sweet moment that could be– sitting with the Lord and asking Him about His dreams for our lives. He can speak truth into our life about how He made us and what He made us for.
This is where the scary part comes in. When we dare to ask God about His dreams for our lives, we will quickly find that they are not things that we can fulfill out of our own human strength. Unfortunately, so many of us, myself included, back down and away from these magnificent visions and settle for what we know is possible from our own experience. We would rather not fail or be disappointed, so we cut these dreams down to portion sizes we can swallow. (Hello there, Pride.)
“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?”
— Jeremiah 32:27
What if we responded differently? What would our lives look like if we chose to believe that God is who He says He is and that He is faithful to His promises? What if we stepped out in faith attempted something that could only be done with the power of the Spirit? I believe God would radically transform our lives.
Rick Warren, in his Daily Hope devotional states, “Never let an impossible situation intimidate you. Let it motivate you to pray more, believe more, trust more, experience more, learn more, and grow more. Faith always works in the realm of the impossible.“
Think of the glory the Lord would receive if we decided to dream big! Why do we consistently come to Him with our mediocre plans for our lives? It makes me wonder if that insults Him.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
— Ephesians 3:20-21
I’ve found that the paths the Lord places me on are often the most scary and seemingly impossible. Yet, the times in which I did choose to trust Him, and passionately pursue those paths, were the times I was left in absolute awe of Him. Those moments leave me so awestruck that all I can do is rejoice, praise His name, and glorify Him for the way He worked in my life! Gah! It frustrates me that I don’t dive in and trust Him more often in this manner. How much more fulfilling and glorifying my life could be?
“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” — Luke 1:37 (KJV)
My desire is to get out of this ugly way of thinking, “I can’t do this, so let’s find something I can do“, and into a more glorifying, “I can do what the Lord has called me to, because it is Him who is at work in me!” (I’m finding this is also going to take an effort of welcoming more Humility into my life as well.)
Let’s quit settling and start asking the Lord about His dreams for our lives– and trusting Him in the process of going for them. What an honor that would be to His name and how different our lives would look!
“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”
— Seth Godin
