Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…

            I share these with you again from a few years ago.  Offered as a reminder of things which we need to embrace—for these days.  God bless you.  Scott

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Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil.”  1 Chronicles 4:10 (NIV)

            It was a big moment for a little girl.  My precious five-month-old Granddaughter, Elise Katherine, had already shrieked, laughed and smiled when she saw me.  Then, in an intimate moment as I leaned close to kiss her, and with her hand stuffed in her mouth, she quietly whispered her very first word:  “Granddaddy.”  I’m almost positive that’s what she said! 

It was a bit “gurgled”, but I’m sure of it, although she won’t say it again in front of others.  Actually, she isn’t saying anything else at this time.  And so it remains our little secret, and a big moment in her life, at least in the heart and perhaps imaginative ear and eye of this beholder.

            A few moments earlier, after I had picked up my other precious Granddaughter, Hannah, from a long day at school, we were ordering her a snack in the drive-thru lane at a nearby fast-food restaurant.   “Let’s see, Hannah” I summarized, “you would like a small Frosty…a small ½ ‘lemolade’—½ Sprite…and small fries?”  “Yes Granddaddy, except I would like Biggie fries.”  Wow!  Imagine that—Biggie fries.  Nothing small or ordinary about that imagination; and she ate them all. 

Imagine that.

            And Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory…”  Here was a man whose future had been cast for him to be extraordinarily “ordinary.”  His name took care of that, as it meant…“he will cause pain.”  The picture that had been painted for Jabez of a special remarkable future seemed to be blank.  Yet he would not be denied, and he imagined something more for himself.  He had heard about a God Who had performed miracles through the years to help His children.  And that same God of miracles Who had created him, he reasoned, surely would want more than “ordinary” for his life?

            And, of course, he was right.

            So, what do you imagine for the rest of your life?  What big, special and remarkable future do you imagine has been painted for the remainder of your days?  What dreams still flicker within your heart?  What relationship do you want restored?  What child needs their life lifted just enough to see the sunshine just beyond the rainbow? 

Or perhaps you’re seeing the picture that others have painted through the years for you of “ordinary”; no miracle moments like first words at age five-months or Biggie fries for a tiny girl after school.  Perhaps you’ve heard too many times that “you’re not a good test-taker” or “that’s just too big to try” or “you can never do that” or “you probably won’t like that” or the clincher “what if you try, and fail?” 

Perhaps you remind yourself that you’ll never amount to as much as He created you to be, because you’ve failed so many times before. 

Better order the small fries next time. 

Perhaps you’ve been told that you’re an underachiever and probably should be satisfied with that. 

Better just order the small fries next time. 

Perhaps you’re still swimming in your own pity party after losing a loved one whose life was anything but pity parties, yet there you swim “honoring” their legacy in your own self-made swill.

Better just order the small fries next time.

            Here’s the generational tragedy in that kind of thinking.  We pass that same kind of cruddy thinking on to our children.  The same messages we received as a child—the ones which slowly eroded our own confidence in the unlimited possibilities of what He created us for, and who He created us to be—we pass on to our children.  The same defeating messages we have finally resigned ourselves to live—received among the disappointments and defeats along life’s journey—we pass along to our children, either through negligence, resignation, jealousy or spite.  And in the process we white-wash the special future created for them by the God of all creation.

Yet today is the first day of the rest of your life, as well as the first day in the rest of the lives of our “children of ages” around us and upon whom you and I have an influence.  And we need to remember that God’s history is replete with His children who down through the ages have sought to overcome the ordinary expectations of others and imagined something special for their lives…something as big as God. 

“Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory…” 

Imagine that. 

Yes, imagine that, and claim that, and order the Biggie fries.

In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.