The Uprising
God is bigger than me. That’s fairly obvious. I’m 6 foot 6 and have to duck through most doorways. I bang my head on cupboard doors and signposts as I’m walking along the street. Usually I’m the tallest person in the room, but still, no matter how big I am, God is bigger than me, much, much, much bigger than me.
In fact He is so much bigger, so much more significant, that it is quite embarrassing to even begin to compare myself to Him. It’s like a fly trying to compare itself to the sun. God has made stars and mountains with His words, amazing stuff like that. Me? I can barely make a sandcastle or start a campfire. Like I said, it just gets embarrassing to compare.
God being so much bigger than me is an amazing, life-giving truth, because it means that when I give my life over to God, to do His will, I’m not wasting my life on something small.
Instead, I’m giving my life to the most significant being and the greatest cause I could possibly give myself to. I’m not wasting my breath when I speak to Him, I’m not wasting my time when I serve Him, I’m not wasting my gifts when I use them for Him, I’m not wasting my life in living for Him. When I give myself to God, I discover my truest purpose and my greatest call. A life given over to God is never a wasted life because He’s just. So. Awesome.
Here’s the flipside of this thought though. If God is so much bigger than I am, that also means that I am so much smaller than He is. I am less than God is. Now that’s not an “I’m worthless” kind of less, but more of a healthy “I’m not the creator of the universe and full of eternal glory” kind of less.
This means that I am less loving than God, less wise than God, I am less powerful than God, I am less creative than God, it also means that I have less imagination and less vision than He does.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9 “However, as it is written: "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived" -- the things God has prepared for those who love him—“
Just take a moment. Let that sink in. No mind has conceived what God has in store…
It seems we don’t even have the mental capacity to even begin to imagine what God has in store for those who love Him. In every way, God’s vision for us is so much more significant than our own.
You might have visions about where your life will lead you and what you might do, but so does God and His vision for your life will lead you into situations and places you never even dreamt of going like Paul says “No mind has conceived…”
When we step into God’s vision for our lives, we step into something that’s bigger than us, it’s something that calls us out of what is safe and comfortable. That’s what an uprising is about, rising up and choosing to follow Jesus’ vision for your life. When you look at the life of Jesus there is no way that he played it safe, that he lived small.
He poured himself out, everything he had, for the sake of his Father in heaven. That’s what the call of God looks like. God calls us into something that is bigger than our gifting, bigger than our thoughts, bigger than our vision, that demands all of who we are. It doesn’t exactly scream out comfortable and secure, does it? That’s because comfortable living is incompatible with a holy calling.
One of my prayers for a long time has been to ask God to help me use every last drop of potential within me for His kingdom, so when I stand before God I can say I gave Him everything - that I gave him my best. Now I realise that prayer was too small. That if I’m only fulfilling my potential I’m still living within my own ability. To live a supernatural life means living beyond your natural capacity.
Living beyond what you can do in your own strength is stretching and it’s scary, it causes you to realise how inadequate you are to fulfil God’s purpose for your life. The call of God in our lives make us feel small, it makes us feel like we can’t do it on our own.
Moses felt it, Gideon felt it, the disciples felt it; it seems to me that anyone who was ever called by God has felt too small for what He has called them to do. You might think this is bad news, it’s really not, it’s great news! Why? Because it’s then that we really start depending on God. Living a big life leads to deeper intimacy with God.
One of the stories that have recently struck a chord with me is the story of the feeding of the five thousand. In it, Jesus needs to feed a lot of people but has no food. He asks the disciples how much food they have. They say 5 loaves and 2 fish - not enough to feed five thousand people.
What they have in their hand isn’t enough, it’s too small, it’s inadequate for their needs. Then Jesus blesses the food and what happens? Everybody eats as much as they want – there’s even 12 baskets of leftovers – one basket for every disciple. When I read that I can’t help but think Jesus is amazing!
We often think the significant thing about this story is that Jesus did so much with so little. I agree, feeding thousands with 2 fish and 5 loaves are nothing if not awe-inspiring; but there’s another side to this story.
It’s what the 2 fish and 5 loaves represent. The little food Jesus had to work with was everything that the disciples had to give him. The five loaves and two fish was all the food they had.
Everything we have, on its own, is never enough for the call God has on our lives, our gifting, our personality, our money, our friendships, our influence, it’s everything to us, but relative to the purpose of God, it’s all so little, it’s five loaves and two fish. However, when we give Jesus everything in our lives, he can do anything with our lives, he can take our little and use it to do an awful lot!
So if you feel too small to rise up to God’s call, good!
If you feel inadequate and out of your depth, great!
If you are scared of how far God might ask you to go, so am I.
My advice? Go for it anyway. Rise up into God’s vision for your life! Embrace your inadequacy and step into what scares you. Accept that all you have is 5 loaves and 2 fish. Be small because you are, but let God be big because that’s who He is!
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