Chapter 4

God-Sized Dreams

Who are you? What do you want to do for the Lord? We are all very different people, and we all have work to do. But that doesn’t mean that we all need to do the same stuff. And praise God for that.

A big part of knowing what kind of service we would thrive in is knowing who we are. I’m now a fan of spiritual gift inventories. I haven’t always been a fan. They kind of remind me of the quizzes I used to take from Seventeen magazine, like “What kind of girlfriend are you?” but Christian style.

The last time I took one of these, it told me that out of the ten or twelve spiritual gifts that were evaluated, my highest was encouragement, and I was pissed. I thought,What a lame spiritual gift! Some people got much cooler gifts—things like wisdom or faith—and I got encouragement. I have the extra special ability to tell people, “Good job!” I must be highly favored….

What is cool, though, is that your gifts work together to make a concoction that is you. And with the specific makeup of gifts that you bring to the table, you can do things for Jesus that many others cannot.

My next-in-line gift is discernment, which I think is much cooler than encouragement. My discernment gift helps me to see through people’s walls pretty quickly. It is easy for me to tell if someone is being dishonest. I’ve learned to use this power for good instead of evil. When I was younger and I thought people were lying, I would just call them out in front of everyone and embarrass them. Now I know that people are often dishonest because they are afraid or uneasy about trusting others. This helps me to feel compassion instead of anger or re- sentment. And that is for sure a gift from the Lord, because in my humanness, I am not a very compassionate individual. (The last gift on my inventory list was mercy.)

With me, when you mix encouragement and discernment, you get an off- spring gift. I call it the spiritual gift of being-able-to-make-people-cry. So if I am in a conversation, often I am able to see deeper into a people’s hearts, to see where their hurts are, and God gives me the words of encouragement that they need to hear right at that point.

When I’m in these kinds of conversations and the other people involved start crying and they get embarrassed, I stop them and tell them not to worry—that their tears are my fault and I just do that to people; it’s my spiritual gift. Most of the time, they think I am kidding. I am not.

What I used to think was the lamest spiritual gift has become my clear place in the body of Christ. There are many things I don’t do well. But the more I embrace what I can do, and take every opportunity to use that for the kingdom, the more I am able to see positive changes in the direction of Jesus.

So who are you? What are your gifts and abilities? What are your passions? What are your dreams? And, do your dreams scare you? They should freak you out. If our dreams don’t scare us, then we probably aren’t dreaming big enough. We have the creator of the universe in our corner. Why would we limit the impact we could have because we are afraid or stuck on our puny dreams?

Don’t get me wrong, the little things matter. The things we do everyday in our local congregations and communities totally matter. But could there be more?

In Acts 1:8, Jesus says these last words before he is taken up, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (NIV). Jesus was a smart dude, and his words often mean more than what we, in our world today, are able to under- stand. This verse is a great example of that.

The people Jesus is talking to in Acts are from Jerusalem. This was kind of like the disciples’ home base. They were familiar with this place, the people were fa- miliar with them, and it wasn’t a difficult place for them to be.

Jesus wanted them to be witnesses for him in their home base. He wanted them to live lives where he was glorified and spoken about regularly. This wouldn’t be a terribly difficult request. It would be like me saying to you, “Hey, when you go to work and school, it would be cool if you loved your friends and invited them to church. It would also be a neat thing if you volunteered at church or led something.” We should all be doing those things. Be my witnesses in Jerusalem. Be my witnesses at home.

Numero dos on that list was to be a witness in Judea. This was a little further away from home. The disciples may not have known as many people there, or been as comfortable. It would be like the difference between you crashing on your best friend’s couch for the night and crashing on your Aunt Sandra’s couch (when you’ve only met her once, she has a beard and you don’t really know what to do with all of that).

They would have had to work harder and be a ton more intentional to do the same kinds of things in Judea as they were doing in Jerusalem. Being a witness in our home base is good, but Jesus asks us for more. What are your dreams for doing more? What could you do for Jesus that maybe makes you a little uncomfortable? What’s your plan for working harder and going the extra mile?

Then we are off to Samaria. Dang, Jesus. Samaria? That was the worst place

possible for the disciples. It was full of folks who were very different from them, and who desperately needed Jesus. Jesus wants his disciples (even present day disciples) to go and do things that are way difficult. Life for Christ isn’t supposed to be comfortable. As we grow in our faith and in our service to the Lord, things should get increasingly more intense.

Our God-sized dreams should have us always moving towards more for him. It’s important to finish what you start. It’s important to allow things to progress in God’s time, and in a way that makes sense. It probably wouldn’t be wise for a per- son to accept Jesus as a personal Savior on a Tuesday and set off on a year-long mission trip on Thursday. God wants us to grow as people and learn to do more for the cause of Christ as we mature in our relationship with Jesus.

Jesus, being Jesus, doesn’t even stop with Samaria. He tells us to be witnesses at our home base, then to go a little further out of our comfort zone, then to go to the places that scare us. (Jesus talked in story often. Maybe a scary place for you has more to do with your personal fears than an actual scary physical location.) THEN Jesus tells us to go to the ends of the earth. What does that even mean? Who the heck knows? Jesus does, and I think that is good enough. The ends of the earth are different for all of us.

What are your God-sized dreams? What could you do for the kingdom that scares you to the core?

Right now you are holding my God-sized dream. I like to write. It is a passion the Lord put on my heart. He made it clear that I am to be as honest and vulnerable in this book as I could ever be. I am sharing stories of my soul that I don’t often share. Now they are printed words and I can never take them back. The hope is that others will draw closer to the Lord through this book somehow. Even just one. Full disclosure: I am terrified. My God-sized dream involves risk and fear.

When people come to the ends of their lives, rarely do they say that they wish they had watched more TV, or played more video games, or talked to their kids less, or attempted fewer of their dreams or desires. People don’t wish they had played it safe. Risk and fear are a part of faith and ministry; they are not your enemy or feelings that you should run from.

Do things no one else has ever done, and do things that people have told you are out of your reach. Do them! And once they’re done, remind people that the Lord uses the least of the least of these to accomplish great things for his glory.

Go to the ends of the earth with your God-sized dreams and do the unimaginable for Jesus.

Questions for Reflection:

What are your spiritual gifts? Take an inventory if you haven’t already. You might be surprised.

What would you do for Jesus if there were nothing holding you back?

Make a list of local things you can do for the kingdom. Start small—but start something.

 

What are you afraid of when it comes to accomplishing your dreams in ministry?

Find Scriptures about fear or service and put them where you will see them regularly.

 

Get the whole book here:

https://frontierpress.org/shop/love-to-a-whores-daughter/