We Are Thinking Too Small.

Following God Requires Next Level Thinking

Photo by Tachina Lee on Unsplash

I had the privilege of sitting at a banquet where Joel Osteen spoke. Joel pastors one of the largest churches in the world. I shall never forget that he made a statement: "Whatever you are thinking, you are thinking too small." He continued, "If you believe in getting married, you believe too small. God not only wants you to get married; He wants you to have a fantastic marriage. If you believe for a fifty-cent raise at work, you believe too small. You ought to believe that you'll own that business someday. If you believe for a college degree, you ought to believe for two college degrees. Whatever you are thinking, you were thinking too small!"
 
Later on, I discovered this verse in 2 Corinthians 6:12:

"The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way." (The Message Translation)

The Bible has a lot to say about this subject. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, they lived under 430 years of slavery. The slave master had taken away their straw to make brick. They would be punished for not meeting their quota the next day. Each night, they would pray for more straw to make more bricks. They were thinking too small. While they are thinking just about surviving, God wanted them to thrive. God does not want you to become a better slave; He wants you to become a son or daughter of God. God eventually took them out of slavery and into the Promise Land.
 
In the Old Testament, Joseph's brothers cast him into prison. Joseph began to pray and ask God to get him out of jail. Joseph was thinking too small. God desired to put Joseph in charge of the prison. Gideon was a man in the Book of Judges who self-admittedly claimed he came from a dysfunctional family. The way he described it, the Jerry Springer show could make a lot of money off of the Gideon family. (smile) Gideon was thinking by default, but God was the designer. God had a designer-made life ready for Gideon, and He needed Gideon to get over his small thinking.
 
Aren't you glad that God does not see you as you are but as you could become? Isn't it amazing that God saw the failures of our past and is still talking about our future? Isn't it amazing that you can be born on the wrong side of town, and God can take you all the way up the economic ladder?
 
Esther, for example, has a whole book named after her. She lost her parents and was thrust into a foreign country where she did not know the language. She was one of the captives and was just trying to survive. She had a good uncle named Morty (Mordechai), who suggested that she enter the national beauty pageant. She won that beauty pageant, but she was thinking too small. God eventually used this young lady to save an entire nation of people from captivity. She moved from survival to success to significance.
 
Another book in the Bible was named after this young lady, Ruth. She was just picking up the leftovers from the fields to survive. But God had a much bigger plan. Her thinking was picking up leftovers. God's thinking was that she should take over. It wasn't long before she married Boaz and gave birth to a son, who gave birth to the second King of Israel.
 
My wife is an accomplished musician, but it did not start that way. She started learning to play the piano but was too shy to play and lead others to sing simultaneously. She would accompany people who wanted to sing, but her thinking was too small. One day, she was asked to play the organ for her college graduation. It was a step forward, but it turned out that her thinking was still too small. After many steps of following the Lord into greater things, she has multiple CDs out today and was responsible for leading thousands of people in worship for years.

The bottom line is that she is still thinking too small. In this, she is not alone. We all struggle daily to overcome small thoughts as we follow the Lord. We all should remember that whatever we're thinking, our thinking is too small!

Let's ask the Lord to help us think big, audacious, world-changing thoughts! Your future self will thank you.

Thank you for reading and participating. Please forward this to a friend or two. :-)

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