Nature Valley advertises its product in a recycling commercial. “Dad, you need to think bigger,” says a young gal as she encourages her father to visualize her granola wrapper glued to other wrappers, creating a hang glider the two of them can share.
I love the message, don’t you? If you’ve ever been around a “big thinker,” you know that they travel to the beat of a different drum. A very large, Big Bertha-type drum. (Google it; it’s eight-feet in diameter.)
Big thinkers dream big. They take risks. They are the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and the JB Straubel’s (Tesla’s mastermind) and the Walt Disney’s who refuse to let naysayers determine their perspective.
So, how cool is it that we serve a God who is bigger than even their biggest ideas?
Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. The verse explodes with possibilities. Break it down. God is… Able to do Able to do abundantly Able to do exceedingly abundantly Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.
In other words, the Heavens are the limit. So, how can I tap into that power, the power to do more than I can ask or think? Am I to pray for a winning lottery ticket or a new house from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or the right key that fits the Ferrari giveaway?
I mean, surely if God can do even more than I imagine, those things would be nothing to Him, right? He operates without boundaries or limitations.
One author writes that He is an “impossibility specialist.” His credentials are proof. Abraham was rightfully promised descendants more numerous than the stars, even though his wife was barren. God’s bigness at work. Joseph, imprisoned although innocent, ended up second in power in Egypt. God’s bigness at work. The lame man at the temple gate asked for money. Instead, he was given the ability to run. God’s bigness at work. Jesus, facing his death, begged God to spare him the torture. Instead, He changed history with his death and resurrection, the high-water mark of divine power. God’s bigness at work.
But before we take verse 20 out of context, let’s look at the verses preceding it, like verses 16 and 17 where Paul writes the Ephesian church, praying “that out of his glorious riches he (God)may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Paul begins here with sort of an abstract desire, but that changes when he gives a human reality (Christ) as the bigness of what God designed.
Paul goes on to pray that Christians will have power “to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Read it again. God’s “thinking big” desire for us has nothing to do with a new car or an executive position in a company. I’m not saying that can’t happen, but God’s priority deals with the bigness of our heart.
His desire is that we spend eternity with Him, and He has already done “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” to make that a reality. In a few days, we will celebrate the birth of that gift.