Chapter 1: Believe in the Big
Believe in the Big
The home run in the final inning to win a game. The three-point shot falling in the net to grab a victory as the buzzer cries. The job finally being offered after decades of endurance. The baby born after years of hoping and praying and waiting and wanting. The friendship restored. The debt paid off. The smile, the eyes, the hug, the laughter.
Isn’t it pleasant when big things happen, when prayers are answered, when miracles occur?
Let’s enter our pursuit of equilibrium in a wild way. Let’s peek out the window and imagine great things coming our way.
I know. That isn’t easy. At least, it isn’t for me.
Some people act like God is obligated to give us whatever we want. Some sermons sound like God is under our control rather than our being under His care. Some books read like God is a magician instead of Heavenly Father. Some talks seem like God waits for the right person to pray the right way with the right amount of faith when suddenly everything goes just the way the person praying hoped it would.
I see things a little differently.
Just as I cannot lean toward the edge of those who treat God like an entertainer or a deal maker or a lucky charm, neither can I stand on the side of those who insist that God’s wide-angle means He controls everything that happens. That our prayers don’t matter at all. That our faith doesn’t matter at all. That our attitudes and actions and service and love don’t matter at all.
No, I do not believe we can control God. Nor do I not believe He refuses to allow us to be involved in His work.
He sees. He knows. He invites. He offers. He listens. He forgives. He guides. Equilibrium offers a nice view—seeing God as a Teacher knowing best, as a Father adopting us as His own, as a Listener wanting to hear us, as a Spirit working with us and within us and through us, as an Artist designing us in His likeness and continuing to refabricate us to look more like Him. And that, at least to me, is huge. I don’t always see or feel or hear His creative artwork. I don’t always display His kindness, His love, His wisdom. My actions and attitudes too often go too far in other directions. But I choose—again, no matter my emotions or my thoughts or my mood—to believe in this: God is big and He does big things.
I am one of those big things. You are one of those big things.
And the many things—those hopes, those dreams, those needs, those goals—are not too big for our Big God to transform them into realities.
Questions
- What are your dreams? What is stopping you from acting on those dreams?
- What can you do to make those dreams come true?
- What can only be done by God? When will you take a step to turn those dreams into reality?
We live a dark and confusing world. Maxwell’s prose and his poetry are just the antidote you’ve been looking for—creative, a bit capricious, and wonderfully uplifting.
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