#517. Forgetting how exponential God is.
Apr 8th by JonA few weeks ago I invited folks to connect with me on Facebook. A bunch did and that is awesome. A few days after accepting everyone that friended me, a guy I didn’t know sent me an instant message that said something like, “Hey, did I see you crossing the street yesterday in Dunwoody?” I work in Dunwoody and after a little back and forth we figured out that he had indeed seen me.
This is where things get a little embarrassing for me.
In about 0.2 seconds, my head swelled up and I thought, “Whoa, someone recognized me. Not just someone, a fan. I’m so important. I’m getting recognized on the streets of the ATL. I should get Ludacris to lay down some tracks on my next jam. I’m not even sure what that means but it sounds right. I am such a super awesome famous Christian blogger.”
And so, intoxicated on my own awesomeness, I chatted the guy back and said something like, “That’s funny that you recognized me. I try to keep my photo off the blog because it’s not about me so you’re one of the first people that reads it and recognized me.” (I like how I worked in some false humility dropping that line about how I try to keep my photo off the site, which is true, but come on. Talk about being proud of being humble.)
He immediately responded:
“Oh, no. I know you from that men’s group you used to go to.”
Cue balloon burst. The men’s group he was referring to is for guys that have broken their lives. It’s a closed group with an intake process and name tags with first name and last name initial so mine just said, “Jon A.”
He wasn’t a fan. He wasn’t some avid reader of Stuff Christians Like. He was another broken guy like me, kindly reconnecting with an old friend. I felt dumb for a second, mad that I am still so ego driven. But then started laughing with God. I felt like in that moment He laughed as I got prideful of being recognized and reminded me, “Don’t worry about getting a big head. I’ve got this. We’re going to get to humility. I promise we will.” And then He laughed with me some more.
I need reminders like because in addition to my ego, I really want to do something big for God. I’ve written about this a million times before, but I want to start a massive ministry and travel the world and launch out on some colossal journey with God. And when I get stuck on that definition of life, when I get drunk on the idea that when God rolls, He rolls big, I forget something really important:
We serve a mustard seed God.
We serve a God that whispered to Elijah.
We serve a God that changed humanity with a baby.
We serve a big God that delights in doing small things we don’t understand.
We serve an exponential God.
I was reminded of how powerfully true this is the other day while talking with Jonathan Golden. He started Land of a Thousand Hills, a coffee ministry that equips Rwandan farmers with the tools they need to heal their country economically and the hope of the gospel. While telling me about the ministry in their small coffee house in Roswell, Georgia, he mentioned that when you buy a cup of coffee you can be part of a redemption story, you can be an answer to prayer from a Rwandan farmer who’s family was murdered by his neighbor, whose community was ravaged by genocide, whose village is so remote it’s untouched by most aid workers.
That changed how I saw the coffee beans that were sitting on the table. Each dusty brown bean was no longer just an anonymous piece of fruit off a plant. It was a connection to a farmer a million miles away. It was a thread stretching through lives and stories and dreams and oceans and hopes and hurts and hills and suburbs. And it was small, but it was significant.
I don’t know where you are with whatever God is asking you to lean into, but I hope you’ll do it even if it feels really small and invisible to the rest of the world. I hope you’ll forever retire the phrase, “This isn’t important” because we can’t possibly know what God has planned for the tiny things we do. I hope you’ll believe in the promise of a bean, in the power of a God that gave us the mustard seed, in the beauty of a God that weaves His story through simple decisions and housewives, water cooler conversations and missionaries and sometimes even cocky bloggers that try to think they’ve got paparazzi.
Because it’s His story. And even the small things are big in His hands.
Comments
Thanks Jon – awesome post! You both shed light on my own pride, and encouraged me to believe in my little space on earth!
Thanks for sharing this humbling and awkward reality check with us… and What God is teaching your through it.
It is so hard when God gives you a big dream… and work patience in the process of getting you there.
We are on the believing God for a big dream and awed by what He is doing working it out in us.
I hear two things resounding in my head as I read your post…
“Do not despise small assignments.”
“If you know God told you to, just do it. Even if no one else sees the point.”
Blessings and Happy Easter.
Wow… this was GREAT. Reminds me of Downhere’s song “Little is Much.”