Spiritual Wellness: How to Go Big

When it comes to writing great headlines experts tell you that one of the best ways to grab attention is to use the “How to” technique. By now most of us have seen television commercials on ‘how to get in the best shape of your life’ or YouTube ads of the young savvy millionaire who tells you ‘how to dominate and make $80,000 or more every month by doing these 3 simple things’.

This is my ‘how to’ conversation with you. As you read it you’ll NOT find any magic keys that will give you the success you’ve always dreamed of, position you to be the highly sought after expert personality or give you more of the time you deserve to do the things you really want. But, by God, this will help you to GO BIG. What you WILL find is that others are doing it right now. We all can as we rely on God and have faith. The Bible is filled with examples and wisdom to teach us. The Spirit of God will guide you to discover your who, where and what.

When you go big in fitness you naturally expand your range of motion, your range of aerobic capacity and your range of potential. When you go big with God you expand your range of wisdom and faith, your range of influence and impact and your range of perspective. You can start to see further – a grand vision that others won’t see because they can’t. It’s the vision God gives you.

But, as big as that is, God let’s you start to see and value more closely the small things. It’s the work of being gracious and gently doing the things that are “no big deal”. It’s the long-suffering that nobody sees or celebrates. It’s doing the things YOU despise because it is what God expects. The smallest of things may be that faint knowing that God will somehow be true even in the face of your biggest failures.

How do you get started? How do you go big? Well, brace yourself. Begin by finding your righteous motive. That means digging beyond what you think is right and finding what God shows you is right. Digging? Yes! You’ve got a lot of questions (you should). Don’t be satisfied until you get the real clear answers. Reality check: our little meal time, bed time and church group prayers ain’t gonna cut it. How low can you go? Further than your ‘knees’ you need to get down on your ‘face’. You give your workout your blood, sweat and tears. Don’t give God any less.

“IT’S COMPLICATED”? NOT WHEN YOU GO BIG

We grab hold of things easy enough: good ideas, positive potential, and opportunity for success. Then it gets complicated. The real God stuff happens in the release – the letting go of hurt, hopelessness, and self-will. There’s a GO BIG Bible story of a woman who had been treated by all kinds of doctors for years but was no better, and in fact worse. Amidst the big crowd of everyone else with one simple act of faith she let go of all that and touched Christ – the result was profound. She was restored better than before and the people then (and us now) got an amazing up close look at just how simple God’s supernatural can be.

“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE”? THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT WHEN YOU GO BIG

Making up your mind to go for it is a big choice. For the person who has never been physically active, making a commitment to exercise is a huge deal. For those who workout regularly, eat healthy and get plenty of rest, doing a competition or running an Ironman triathlon requires not only relentless hard work and boldness but an element of faith. For entrepreneurs, those in business and everyone who works daily, making the vocation part of your life resonate all-in commitment to a greater purpose can seem impossible. There’s another GO BIG Bible story that blazes past doubt and mediocrity. Elijah, at a mountain top retreat of sorts, did what God told him to do – challenge others to get off the fence. He brought together those most confident and they discovered just how incapable and desperate they were. Then in good turn the impossible underscored the big-as-God results.

“IT’S OVER”? IT’S ONLY BEGUN WHEN YOU GO BIG

Don’t give up. Be like Jesus and have real clarity of purpose. With all the potential God sees in you, there really is no time to waste. You need to drive your life, through each day, with attention to how God can make a difference. That’s innovation that reflects not what you do but who God is. This GO BIG Bible story quite honestly is your ultimate calling. There’s likely no part of the Bible that is more familiar to people than this – Jesus birth, life and ministry, death and resurrection. When He said, “It is finished” it was just the beginning. His life isn’t just an unparalleled example or even God in the flesh with us. Christ is the ultimate ‘how to GO BIG’.

In all of these Bible examples we don’t see these people specifically asking WHO should I reach, WHERE are the best places to make a difference and WHAT is the best way to do it. They simply sought God, payed attention, did what they were supposed to do and anticipated BIG.

When we listen to God, He can lead us to do more than best practices and achieve proven results. He wants to lead us to GO BIG and help our members, clients, team and community OR our family, friends, co-workers and contacts grow spiritually beyond what they, you – any of us could imagine or hope for. 

OBEY YOUR THIRST FOR GOD

But to get to this, to DO God’s will, God requires that we humbly give our self-will to Him. God is looking for obedience in you. Not obedience out of fear or a relinquishing because you’ve tried other things so you might as well try obedience too. And, it’s certainly not an obedience because you’re looking for the spiritual equivalent of a strategic and powerful Google or Facebook algorithm.

It’s an obedience that is humble, that is confident in faith and listens persistently. It’s an obedience that is characterized by assurance and amazement. You have assurance in God and stand amazed by the evolution that God brings through the process. You’re like, “Oh! My God. Thank you.” Tears come to your eyes not because of the thrill or of doing fitness, or the velocity of doing business but because the BIG that God creates is always something fresh, new, full of life and truly the Spirit of God in our very presence.

READ: 6 Ways Spirituality Can Help Make You Healthier

 

Near the end of the song Privilege by the artist Young Bro, he has sampled a pastor preaching:

We don’t come to God on our terms. This is not some negotiating conference. This is not a God who says, “We’ll what would you like, here’s what I like, let’s talk about it.” He’s God! A holy righteous God. He’s given us the privilege of not just coming and singing about him but entering into His actual presence.

That’s a word that we all need to hear and understand. Pray that it will be your truth, the BIG place where you exist daily – in God’s presence. When you live like that then your faith in the midst others becomes more than just ‘singing about Him’ where they think, “there’s one of those nice Christians”.

Instead, they too can enter into God’s presence, taste and see that He is good and gain more than strength. They gain wholeness and achieve a life transformation that goes way beyond the physical. When God works in you to GO BIG then others can go big.

So in the future, like this week, even today, actually right now – what will you choose?    #IchooseBIG

–Brad Bloom | faithandfitness.net