REFLECTIONS

Thinking Big Enough

Envisioning large possibilities in his mind, a friend once lamented, “The trouble with our business is that our leaders just don’t think big enough.” The truth of his statement brought pause to wonder if the possibilities he saw were greater than those I allowed myself to see. I even wondered if the possibilities were bigger than my friend’s mind conceived. The thought set off a cascade of wonderings about just how big our possibilities in this life really are.

I recalled a crisp, clear night in a setting on the grounds of the Visitors Center of McDonald Observatory. That night the endlessness of a blackened sky formed the backdrop for a blanket of twinkling stars reaching deep into the distance. The size of the scene shrunk the essence of my being into a smallness I never felt before. Then a reflecting light from a manmade satellite made its way across the sky reminding me of man’s quest to understand God’s creation. Still I wondered how big those dreamers were thinking when the satellite launched onto its journey. And I wondered if anyone in this world has ever thought big enough. How big is God’s creation anyway? If an answer is found to the question, it will likely still not be big enough.

Just think of the many individual accomplishments that have exceeded personal dreams. Or how many creative ideas that have transformed the ways of life on this earth beyond the expectations of the creator of them.

I wonder if the dreams of our country’s founders, spawned by the desire to enjoy freedom to think, speak, move about, and worship as they pleased, ever imagined a nation that would become the most influential and powerful the world has known. I wonder if those founding fathers were really thinking big enough when they signed the Declaration of Independence and placed their signatures on the Constitution of the United Sates?

I wonder if Tennyson envisioned the bigness of the idea he expressed in Ulysses, “I am a part of all I have met.” I wonder if he thought big enough to imagine the magnitude of the converse reality that all I will ever meet will thereafter include a part of me?

Our God is very big. His plans extend beyond the imagination of any man. So I can’t help but wonder if I am thinking big enough, especially when Jesus says to me,

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org.

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