Blog – 1-6-16 Go Big or Go Home!
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)
We’ve all heard the phrase “Go big or go home,” right, but I never really thought of it as being biblical until I read this verse from Ephesians. It doesn’t pull any punches when it says that God can do “infinitely” more than we ask or think we can. “Infinitely” is a strong word that means without end or exceedingly great. In other words, we are all capable of so much more than we believe we are, not because of who we are but because of God’s great power working in and through us.
In this verse, God is telling all of us to go big or go home. I’m not saying we all need to dream of being millionaires, because there’s really no eternal significance in that at all, and God’s dreams for us are way bigger than that. He’s talking about the potential in us to influence others for His Kingdom that we don’t even begin to see. It’s like we are living in a “van down by the river” when God has a “mansion on a hill” waiting for us to move into! If only we could see what He sees.
Of course, it’s much easier and safer to keep our dreams small so we don’t have to risk being disappointed. We minimize our goals in order to minimize our chance of failure. None of us like to let other people down either, so sometimes it simply feels easier to not dream at all.
I get all that and I’ve lived that out plenty of times in my life, but I believe with all my heart that that is NOT how our creative and loving God wired us. Deep inside us He placed the human desire to go further, test the limits, and be creative because He made us in His image, which is a Creative Creator. God wants us to dream big because he knows that those kinds of dreams require faith and trust to make them happen. He wants us to base our dreams on His strength and His power, not our own. We need to let the size of God determine the size of our goals.
When we settle for less than we could be, when we let fear keep us from taking risks we know God is placing in our lives, when we let past failures stop us from stepping out in faith, we suffer, but more importantly, God’s kingdom suffers. If we aren’t living out our true potential, something uniquely us, the world won’t ever get to experience it!
When we let excuses like we’re “too old” or we’re “too scared” keep us from going down a new, different path God is unfolding before us, we miss the opportunity to bless others. When we settle for the “same old, same old” we limit the ability of God to do miracles in our lives.
Maybe we should change that phrase up a bit to say, go big until you go home! Our time on earth is incredibly short, so why not live every day before we go home to glory with a passion that excites others to join us on our journey! God didn’t create us to be mediocre. He created us with a unique, individual, beautiful purpose, and I challenge you to find your unique purpose and live it out BIG! That is how God is asking us to live, dreaming big because our God is big…bigger than we can dream or imagine!
Hugs and love,
~Jill