Walk Boldly With Jesus

Do Not Despise Small Beginnings

Episode Summary

Zachariah 4:10 “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” Today's episode is telling us to not despise our small beginning because God gave us those small beginnings. Those small beginnings are probably answers to our prayers and also we have no idea where those small beginnings will lead us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Episode Notes

 Do Not Despise Small Beginnings

Zachariah 4:10 “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”

I heard this verse in a sermon I was listening to on the Elevation Podcast.  The sermon was given by Jabin Chavez.  This verse was a small part of his sermon and yet when he said it something inside me said that someone listening to this episode needs this verse right now.  Someone needed to hear that is it ok that things aren’t going as fast as you wanted or happening as big as you wanted.  Someone needed to hear that we don’t have to be discouraged with our small beginnings.  I know this verse is for me, and yet I felt as though I was not the only one who needed to hear it.  This verse is telling us not to despise small beginnings as this is often how our prayers are answered.  Are you looking around and thinking this does not look like you thought it would?  You thought you would be further along at this point in your life.  You thought you business would be more successful.  You thought you would be married, or you thought you would have kids.  You thought it would look different.

The “it” is different for each one of us and yet many of us share this common disappointment.  Why is this?  Why do we wish we were further along instead of enjoying the ride to get to where we are going?  I think we want to be further along because that is what the world seems to care about and we often get caught up in the world instead of what God wants.  The world tells us that we are defined by what we have.  We strive to have the biggest car, the biggest house, the best job, the most stuff.  We think this makes us worthy because that is what society tells us.  This is not what God tells us.  God tells us in Matthew 19:30 “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”   God does not look at our lives the way society does.  He is not looking to see who has the most stuff, the biggest house, or the best job.  God is looking to see, “Did you help out those in need?” “Did you love your neighbor as yourself?” “Did you follow His ways and put Him first?” These are the things God is judging.  

Even when we know this, even when we know the things God is calling us to, we can still feel discouraged because, “we haven’t helped enough people yet,” or “we haven’t loved well enough yet.”  Whether it is in our regular life, or our spiritual life, we can often tend to be discouraged with our progress.  How many of us have said, "I should be praying more,” “I should trust more,” or “I should rely on God more?” We all have times when we aren’t happy with our progress and this verse is the perfect verse to remember when we start to have these thoughts.  

Many of us can get the idea in our heads that God is up there, sitting on His thrown, looking down on us and judging us because He is not pleased with our progress.  We picture Him just shaking His head and saying, “Really, again?” or “I can’t believe they haven’t learned that yet.”  I think this verse is telling us that we are wrong.  God isn’t up there judging our progress and being disappointed.  He is up there watching and smiling at every small step in the right direction that we take.  He is reassuring us not to worry if are beginnings are small because at least we are beginning.  

Pastor Chavez was saying that often times the answers to our prayers come in seed form.  We want God to just give us the answer with all the details all worked our perfectly and yet that is not often how it works.  It does happen like that sometimes and we Praise God every time it does. Often we will pray about something and God will give us an idea and then we need to take that idea and cultivate it.  This takes time.  It takes time and lots of listening to God to figure our what He is calling us to do with our lives.  However, even when we know what our calling is, it is often revealed in stages.  I am not sure anyone gets handed a roadmap for their whole life’s mission all at one time.  We often feel called to one thing, which then leads to another thing, which leads to another thing and so on.  I am sure this is intentional because we get the skills to do the next level of things while we are learning to do the first level.  I can imagine it is also intentional because if we knew where our 40 years of hard work was going to lead us, we might not say yes to that first step.  

If I knew that saying yes to attending a retreat when I was in college would lead me to having a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit, which would lead me to help start a whole revivial of the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church, would I still go to that retreat, or would I be overwhelmed with that much responsibility.  Honestly I don’t know. I am grateful for those who attended the retreat that is now known as the Duquesne Weekend and has marked the beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.  I am sure their lives changed immensely on that weekend and they helped lead the Charismatic Renewal one step at a time.  I can imagine they wanted it to spread quicker because once you know the power of the Holy Spirit you want everyone else to have that experience too.  However, they went at the pace God took them and I am sure God was happy with their small beginnings.  I will actually put a link for a description of the Duquesne Weekend in the show notes as it was an incredible experience for all involved and is really interesting to read about. (Click Here for article)

You might be looking at your life and thinking you are not where you wanted to be or where you thought you would be and yet God is looking at your life and saying, “You are right where I want you to be.”  Most of the time we have no idea of the amazing things God has planned for our lives.  It’s when we do have some idea that we get impatient and we want those amazing things now.  God’s timing is perfect.  If we want something now and God has not given it to us yet, there is a reason.  Most likely, we are not ready for it yet.  God knows our hearts.  He knows what we will do with what we are given.  God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  We do not understand a lot of the things God does.  We often can’t understand His timing.  This is because we are looking at a very tiny piece of the puzzle and God gets to see the whole picture.  

I think what God is telling us with this verse is “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” He doesn’t want us to despise the small beginnings because He gave us those small beginnings.  Also, we shouldn’t judge our ending on the small beginnings because we don’t know what these small beginnings will grow into.  One saying the pastor said in his sermon that I really liked was that you can cut open an apple and count the number of seeds in it.  However, you have no idea how many apples are in one seed.  Only God can make your endeavors fruitful.  We won’t know how much fruit will come from each seed, each idea you have, until it is fully grown.  Keep nurturing your ideas, keep working at them,  don’t get discouraged if you aren’t where you thought you would be, God will get you there in His perfect timing.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listen to this episode today.  Lord, help us to be content, happy, even joyous over our small beginnings knowing your timing is perfect.  Help us to be patient as we wait for the amazing things you have called us to come to fruition.  Help us to see clearly what you are calling us to and how we get there.  We love you Lord, we want what you want.  We want our wills to be aligned with your will, please help us.  We are so grateful for all the desire you placed in our hearts.  Please help us to cultivate those desires and to be patient while we wait for your perfect timing.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus!  I am so glad to be back with all of you this week.  I enjoyed spending time with my family last week.  We stayed up until 2-3 in the morning playing games and laughing with each other.  It was great.  We also had dinners as a family.  It was so nice to all be together.  We missed the two siblings that couldn’t come.  Hopefully we will all get together sometime soon.  I just want to remind you that you can pick up an autographed copy of my book on my website.  You can also sign up for my newsletter there.  walkbodlywithjesus.com I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Have a blessed day.