reblog: I don’t want to do anything big for God…

Originally posted July 1, 2009

I know my blogging is sporadic at best and I still sometime wonder if it’s worth it or why even bother.  But, here I am… unfiltered, uncensored and certainly unpolished.

The statement above (the title not the one about sporadic blogging) is so in contrast from the way I lived my life for years.  Most of my life, I was told to “dream a big dream.”  Dream a big dream of doing something great… something big… something awesome for God.  And, make sure your dream is bigger than anything you can accomplish on your own or else it’s probably not God which is code for you are doing it all in the flesh and without faith and… you get the point.  You’ve probably heard it too.  Heck… I even preached a couple of these in my day.

And, like most things in life, I’m evaluating everything.  It’s just where I am these days and at this point in my journey.  So, I’ve been thinking about these statements and more importantly these concepts that we throw off on people in the Western church.  And, I’ve been looking to the Word (there’s a novel idea) and comparing this line of thinking to the examples we find in there.

By and large, I don’t see this as the line of thinking in the examples the Holy Spirit, in His limitless wisdom, decided to hand down for all generation to benefit.  Most of the men of faith had a measure of contentment rarely seen in church leaders in America.  You don’t see the pressured “build it as big as you can, as fast as you can” stressed out, “why isn’t this working, so let’s try the next thing” frenzy that a lot of church leaders exist in.

I don’t see the “big dreams” beginning with man at all.  It’s always been initiated by God.

  • God comes and taps Noah on the shoulder and somehow this drunkard of a man saves the planet and repopulates the earth.
  • God comes to Gideon and his response is, “Certainly, not me.”
  • God comes and hits Moses up and Moses argues for three chapters why God got it wrong and he’s not the guy.
  • God chooses mere fisherman who are content at working the family business to launch a global movement.

The only figure I can identify with a lot of ambition and “big dreams” to do “great things” for God is Saul… before God knocked him off his horse and he became Paul.  He was killing Christians in the name of God and in the name of doing “great things” for God.

So, somewhere along the line, we have to stop the madness of it all and stop the frenzy of it all and just walk.  Struggle if need be.  And focus on what’s most important.  And if somehow God taps us on the shoulder for something extraordinary then fine.  And if not, that’s fine too.

We all have our part to do in raising our families.  Doing the simple work of caring for others.  Loving… truly loving our neighbors.  Being generous and humble.  Expressing devotion to God in simple service.  And, I think in those things, God may just be more pleased than us getting all worked up about fulfilling the “big dreams” and building it as big as we can, as fast as we can.

Some may say, “that’s a cop out” but honestly I pity those that still live in that completely unbiblical, stressed out, fear-filled world of Amercian church leadership.

I for one, am living the dream and it may not be big to others but it is big to those closest to me.  And I’ve never been more content.

Morse Code: Giving Up on Your Dreams What do you do when your dream dies?  When it’s obvious that all you’ve worked towards isn’t going to come to pass.  One day you realize, you’re just not good at what you’ve been pursuing.  You’re not built for it.  It’s not a natural strength. And now, you find yourself depressed and asking, “What’s next?” I’ve been reading and enjoying David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.  In it, McCullough shows how the City of Light attracted hundreds of Americans between 1830 and 1900 — including household names like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Samuel Morse, and Mark Twain -  and in turn helped shape American art, medicine, writing, science and politics.  Set in Paris, it is a brilliant perspective on American history.   Morse Code One of the characters I’ve appreciated following is Samuel Morse.  I was unaware that Morse had his heart set on becoming a world-class master painter since his early days in college.  And, even though he had a measure of success painting portraits, he failed in his ultimate pursuit. He had travelled to Paris to learn from the masters and spent everyday for two years working on The Gallery of the Louvre (above).  It depicts many of the Louvre’s great paintings on a 6x9 canvas.  Morse sold it for far less than he was hoping. Upon returning home to the United States, Morse gave up painting entirely and with it, his dreams of accomplishment and recognition as an artist.  Morse told his friend, Nathaniel Willis, that he was so tired of his life that had he “divine authorization, he would end it.” “Painting has been a smiling mistress to many but she has been cruel to me. I did not abandon her. She abandoned me.” But Morse’s greatest contribution was yet to come.  He refocused his efforts on something else he had experimented with while in Paris… the magnetic telegraph, precursor to the telephone. Had he not stopped painting when he did, no electrically magnetic telegraph could have happened when it did.  At least not by his hand.  Within a few decades, messages were being sent trans-oceanic all around the globe.  Today, we take global communication for granted but it was nothing short of a miracle at the time. Stop being a copy and realign your focus with your strengths Your failures and setbacks aren’t fatal or final.  And, maybe you do just need to hang in there, not give up, and see that thing through.   Or maybe, you need to realign your focus with your true strengths.  Maybe you’ve been trying to be something you’re not.  You’ve been wishing you could be that “more successful” someone else.  That’s why you’re frustrated.   Maybe you need to stop sitting around merely emulating the “greats” and making copies of their masterpieces.  Maybe just maybe, your greatest contribution is yet to come.  But that won’t happen until you start being you.
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Morse Code: Giving Up on Your Dreams

What do you do when your dream dies?  When it’s obvious that all you’ve worked towards isn’t going to come to pass.  One day you realize, you’re just not good at what you’ve been pursuing.  You’re not built for it.  It’s not a natural strength. And now, you find yourself depressed and asking, “What’s next?”

I’ve been reading and enjoying David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.  In it, McCullough shows how the City of Light attracted hundreds of Americans between 1830 and 1900 — including household names like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Samuel Morse, and Mark Twain -  and in turn helped shape American art, medicine, writing, science and politics.  Set in Paris, it is a brilliant perspective on American history.  

Morse Code

One of the characters I’ve appreciated following is Samuel Morse.  I was unaware that Morse had his heart set on becoming a world-class master painter since his early days in college.  And, even though he had a measure of success painting portraits, he failed in his ultimate pursuit.

He had travelled to Paris to learn from the masters and spent everyday for two years working on The Gallery of the Louvre (above).  It depicts many of the Louvre’s great paintings on a 6x9 canvas.  Morse sold it for far less than he was hoping.

Upon returning home to the United States, Morse gave up painting entirely and with it, his dreams of accomplishment and recognition as an artist.  Morse told his friend, Nathaniel Willis, that he was so tired of his life that had he “divine authorization, he would end it.”

“Painting has been a smiling mistress to many but she has been cruel to me. I did not abandon her. She abandoned me.”

But Morse’s greatest contribution was yet to come.  He refocused his efforts on something else he had experimented with while in Paris… the magnetic telegraph, precursor to the telephone.

Had he not stopped painting when he did, no electrically magnetic telegraph could have happened when it did.  At least not by his hand.  Within a few decades, messages were being sent trans-oceanic all around the globe.  Today, we take global communication for granted but it was nothing short of a miracle at the time.

Stop being a copy and realign your focus with your strengths

Your failures and setbacks aren’t fatal or final.  And, maybe you do just need to hang in there, not give up, and see that thing through.  

Or maybe, you need to realign your focus with your true strengths.  Maybe you’ve been trying to be something you’re not.  You’ve been wishing you could be that “more successful” someone else.  That’s why you’re frustrated.  

Maybe you need to stop sitting around merely emulating the “greats” and making copies of their masterpieces.  Maybe just maybe, your greatest contribution is yet to come.  But that won’t happen until you start being you.