Big, but how big?

You are going to do something big with your life.

I’m not sure if it will be this year. It might. It might not. You could start a huge ministry that travels the world and makes it all the way to Brunei to see all my friends there. You could start a business or a family or a million other things that are, well big. I don’t have any insight into the “what” of what you are going to do. But I do know one thing.

You don’t know how big it is going to be.

Maybe you dream like me. I dream about writing books and speaking to lots of people. I might do that someday or I might just write a blog until I’m old and grey and able to wear fedoras without looking foolish. But the reason I don’t think you know how big your thing is going to be is because of something I read in Acts.

Here’s the setup:

Peter has brought the truth of Christ to some Gentiles, his Jewish friends aren’t happy. In Acts 11 he explains himself saying that “the Holy Spirit came on them as it did us.” Verse 18 continues the story:

When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

There’s something about that scene that makes me laugh. I just get the sense of the disciples sitting around realizing something that now feels very obvious. There’s a scene in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” in which Jim Carrey’s character asks Lauren Holly if he has a chance to be her man. She tells him that it’s “one out of a million.”

His response after pausing in deep reflection over this devastating news is perfect, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”

That’s how it feels with the disciples. They’d spent long stretches of time with Christ. They’d heard him speak, watched him die for the world and seen miracle upon miracle upon miracle. And they still didn’t get it. Upon learning that the Gentiles were going to be included in God’s plans they respond, “So you’re saying it’s the Gentiles too.”

Can you imagine how mind blowing that was? How their dream multiplied exponentially in that moment? How big the whole idea of God suddenly got?

I think that’s how dreams go with God in control. I think they’re always bigger than we think. I think they’re always more amazing than we planned.

I think you don’t know how big it’s going to be.