photo by tnserose
I can almost heart the breathlessness in her email as she types, “Please don’t share this with anyone. If it gets out, someone else might do it.”
Later in the day a woman confesses, “There are already so many people doing what I feel called to do. How can my voice even make a difference?”
Then a friend says over dinner to me, “Even when I make progress there’s still someone doing it better than I am. Shouldn’t I just cheer them on?”
I nod in understanding at the fear, questioning, and hesitation in these statements. When a God-sized dream first comes to us it often feels like a brand new revelation—as if no one else in the whole history of the universe has ever thought of this idea. Then quickly we realize that whatever we want to do or share has already been done or said before. So we sigh and think, “Time to start over.”
But that’s the reality of God-sized dreams. Wise Solomon said “there is nothing new under the sun.” But he didn’t say, “there is no one new under the sun.” Because every one of us is one-of-a-kind and there will never be anyone else like us again. It doesn’t matter if someone else has said it or done it already. You haven’t. We need your version, your perspective, your voice in this world. You’re simply irreplaceable.
And you are here for such a time as this—to share this God-sized dream with your generation. I love how Scripture says, “David…served God’s purposes in his own generation” (Acts 13:36). You are called to offer what God has placed within you to our world right here, right now. No one else will live the exact amount of time you will, in the place you will, with the people who God will have cross your path.
You can’t say “oh, they’ll get what they need from someone else” because if God intends them to receive it through you, that’s not true. “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). In other words, there are things in this world that only you can do. That means that there is no such thing as better in the Kingdom—only different. You are not competing with your brothers and sisters. Instead all of us are completing God’s plan together…
Will you read the rest with me over at (in)courage?
