LOOKING AT THE RIGHT ANGLE

"The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" (2Corinthians 6:12-13, The Message).

God has great thoughts towards you and He has great plans for your life. On this subject, the Psalmist observed, "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee" (Psalms 139:17-18). Friends, God has purposed that you should accomplish great things in this life. 

However, we will never be able to achieve those great things if we keep focusing on ourselves. The natural man will always feel inadequate when he keeps looking at himself vis-a-vis the great plans of God. Our abilities and skills, our talents and giftings, our educational and professional qualifications, preparations and experiences will never be adequate to bring us into the realisation of the big dreams God has given to us. 

But nothing makes us feel more inadequate as our limitations and challenges. Well, of course, no man looks to his weaknesses and feels strong. No, you don't gain strength by focusing on the things that are wrong with you or the situation in which you have found yourself. Yes, it's okay to examine your frailties, but that consideration is only useful to the extent that it helps you to learn the necessary lessons and helps you to plan how to overcome them or triumph in spite of your weaknesses. 

This is why it will always be a worthy counsel to constantly look unto Jesus, "the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). You can't keep looking unto Him and still feel small. In fact, what will likely happen is that as you look unto Him and consider what He went through for our sake, your failings, frailties, weaknesses and challenges that the enemy has been using to keep you down will suddenly become small and pale into complete insignificance. 

So I encourage you today to look away from yourself, open up to the Lord and let Him fill your life with His fullness (Ephesians 3:19). How would you ever feel small again when you open up to Him and hear Him say, "You are my temple, and I have said, 'I will dwell in you, and walk in you; and I will be your God...'" (2 Corinthians 6:16). Keep looking  unto Jesus and you will hear Him say, "be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Then divine strenght will muster within you and you will feel a new note of confidence that you will make it. 

It is well with you.