Growing up, I had a feeling that I was meant for greatness. I dreamed of being everything from a princess to a tennis star, perhaps a surgeon or a world traveler who would eat cool food & stay in fancy hotels. The details weren’t nailed down, but something inside of me was pretty sure that my future held some great things.
As I grew up I realized that a career in tennis wasn’t in the books, medical school would take up a lot of my prime years, traveling the world in style wasn’t really a “career” & Prince William wasn’t exactly available… but still that little longing for greatness remained.
As I made my way through 3 different universities, I took classes that ranged from anthropology to finance, chemistry to linear algebra & everything in-between. Years later I have about 90% of a bachelor’s degree to show for it & a heart that is still as unsure of what I want to do with my life as I was on the day I started.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I suppose I kept hoping that I would find that thing, that passion that set me on fire enough to dedicate my life to it.
With each friend who went on to grad school & each career that started, my desire for greatness started to feel like a fantasy, like a dream that I could only visit in my sleep… my waking hours were best suited for practicality & a 9-5.
Recently however, somewhere between South Africa & Vietnam I suppose; the longing for greatness has been resurfacing. I feel it as I fall asleep & I recognize the familiar speedy heartbeat that comes along with this dreaming & planning & soon enough I started to hear it spilling out into my prayers…
“Lord, make me great. Use me in extraordinary ways.”
I’m not exactly sure that I meant to ask & I’m not entirely convinced it’s okay to pray for such a thing… but if this race has taught me anything, it’s that my understanding of greatness has changed. I pray for greatness & I believe that not only is it okay, but it is a longing as well as a commission from God for each & every believer.
“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16
That’s Jesus. & He is asking, no, calling us to be great. He is calling us away from our average lives of mediocrity & indifference… He is calling us instead to shine so that He may be glorified by the lives we live.
We are called to be great, not for greatness sake & not for our own gain, but for the glory of our God, because He is great.
He is glorified when we choose to live our days with purpose, influence, expectation & love. Jesus was asked by His disciples how to become great & rather than scolding their desire, He taught them how to be great for Him, “if any of you wishes to be great, he must be the servant of all.” Matthew 20:26
When Jesus defines greatness, He is asking for humility.
We are called to serve & humbly lay down our lives, just as He did.
So I sit at His feet & ask again to be great, ask to be used in mighty ways, ask for great things to be done in me and through me… & this time I am expectant. I wait to be used & not so that the world will know my name, but that they will know His.
Never again will I settle for anything less than a life of significance for the Kingdom. The best part? I know that I’m not the only one. It’s all around me. A generation is rising up that is on fire for His name, hungry to live lives that radically display God’s greatness… I can give you 53 names right now & I am walking each day beside them as we humble ourselves again & again to serve Him.
As for my future? I still have no idea what that holds, but I’m learning what it looks like day by day. It starts & ends with remaining in Him. It means trusting that Jesus has a plan & obeying Him every step of the way.
It’s His story, after all… so I’m trusting Him to piece the days together in a way that shows His greatness.
