Dream big - Devotion for 5/22/07

Dream Big – Devotion for 5/22/07

One thing that my boys truly inherited from me is their love of sweet nectar of the gods – Mountain Dew. Oh how I love the tingle of the carbonation as I pour a freshly opened bottle into my mouth! That, and the caffeine (especially in the morning). Almost always at supper time when we ask our boys what they want to drink one of them will reply, “Can I have Mountain Dew?” Some nights we will be the bad parents that we are and we allow them to have some, and hopefully it is the caffeine variety (that I only buy for their sake). However, most of the time when they ask for Mountain Dew they are given a swift kick of “no” (after all, we’ve got to save some for Daddy!). I guess after getting the “no” response so many times they are conditioned to not even ask if they can have Mountain Dew.

One night a while back we went through the normal routine of asking them what they wanted to drink with supper. I immediately got one reply of “milk” from one, but the other one asked the usual question – “Can I have Mountain Dew?” One this particular night I was feel exceptionally generous, and without their mother’s agreement, I allowed him to have some Mountain Dew. His brother got so ticked when he sat down at the table and saw that while he was drinking milk, his brother was drinking Mountain Dew! He cried out to me, “That’s not fair! How come he gets to drink Mountain Dew and I have to drink milk?” And I answered him, “Because you asked for milk, and he asked for Mountain Dew.”

I wonder how many times we actually miss out on getting something better out of life because we are so focused on something else. Just because he didn’t always get Mountain Dew didn’t mean that he couldn’t keep asking for it. And just because things don’t always go as we expect or hope for doesn’t mean we can’t keep asking and praying for it. In the book of Acts, there is a story of a man that was lame from birth. In Acts 3, we learn about how this many was carried each day to the gate of the temple where he would beg for alms from everyone who was entering the temple. Each day he was asking for money, but money wasn’t what he really needed, nor even what he truly wanted. However somewhere along the way of life he had become conditioned to the fact that he was lame, and so he just settled for asking for money instead of healing. Do we ever find our selves becoming conditioned and just settling for certain things in life instead of seeking what we truly want or need?

So one day Peter and John are out strolling to the temple and they pass by this lame man. As he asked them for alms, he had probably become so conditioned to rejection that he didn’t even look at them when he asked. Peter instructed him “Look at us!”(v. 4) And then something amazing happened. Peter explained that although he didn’t have the silver or gold that the lame man was asking for, he did have something better – “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene – walk!” Taking the man’s hand, the once-lame man was lifted up, and then he began walking and leaping and praising God! He may have been asking for alms, but what he truly wanted and what he truly needed was something far greater – but it was something beyond what he thought was possible. Do we ever ask God for one thing, when what we really need and want is something far greater? In other words, do we limit how much we think God can do?

Just because you haven’t gotten that which you are seeking doesn’t mean it won’t come. Don’t give up – just keep dreaming the big dream. Don’t settle for the smaller dream – the easier dream. Don’t limit what God can do for you – go ahead and ask Him and tell Him, no matter how impossible it may seem. My one son had simply settled to drink milk (which probably isn’t as good of an image as I had hoped, because milk truly is what he needed instead of the Mountain Dew), instead of asking for what he really wanted. But the other son was exceedingly pleased when his request was granted. If he had not asked for the Mountain Dew, I would not have given it to him. What is it that you really and truly need from God but you have maybe grown so frustrated from the wait that you have quit asking? You know what the awesome thing is? God still knows what it is, and sometimes He steps in and gives us what we truly want and need in His own time, just as He did for the lame man, who had probably quit asking for healing years before. But that shouldn’t be reason for you to stop dreaming. Dream big so that you can see how big God truly is.