That Ache to Be Great

On my fifth birthday, my parents threw me a party and invited Mr. Magic to our house. In real life, he was a retired art teacher from the neighboring town, but in my mind, Mr. Magic was a sign and a wonder. He had a black top hat, a white cane, and a box full of mysterious things.

At one point in his performance, he dragged me onto his stage (also known as the corner of my living room) and in front of all my friends asked me to stuff his magical handkerchief in the front of my pants. I was wearing my karate suit and quickly obeyed his instructions. He waved his wand, then pulled the handkerchief out. It now had a large pair of white underwear attached to it. The crowd let out an audible “Ahhhhh.”

I was stunned. I immediately checked to see if my underwear was still on, and it was! My mind began racing with possible explanations for what had just happened. The underwear now attached to the hand- kerchief was far larger than anything I had ever worn. I tried to put the pieces together. Somehow, Mr. Magic had replicated my underwear, increased the size of the new pair, and removed it from my body—all in an instant! Amazing. But how did he do it?

At that moment, I was open to any explanation. My five-year-old mind was like a blank sheet of paper. Maybe his wand had underwear- multiplying capabilities. Maybe the handkerchief was made of some super-special material. Maybe my karate suit had magical powers. At that time in my life, at that moment, the concept of possibility was completely pliable.

Life would later teach me that magic wands don’t exist, that there are no super-special materials, and that my karate suit was just a $19.99 purchase from Walmart. The magic of what’s possible got snuffed out by what’s reasonable, and Mr. Magic turned back into a retired art teacher from the neighboring town.

Do you remember your days of imagination? In your wildest, most cherished childhood dreams, what did your future look like? Were you an astronaut? A professional athlete? A movie star? I remember dreaming about being a sailor who would sail a ship around the whole world. I’m sure you had a dream too. But as we got older, we all learned to anchor our dreams in reality. We looked around us and began to expect only what we’d seen others achieve.

This is where the life of Jesus abruptly interrupts our settle-for-less, realistically sized dreams. The accounts of his life describe a man who was constantly stretching the bounds of what was possible. He walked on water, raised the dead, talked to a storm, and cast out demons. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus was confronted by a man whose son was plagued with seizures. The father was desperate for help and cried out to Jesus, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us” (Mark 9:22). The response of Jesus was startling. “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23).

What are we supposed to do with a sentence like that? All things are possible? Come on, Jesus; let’s be realistic! But he didn’t stop there. “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mark 11:23). In another instance, he said, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12 NIV). The more I study the life of Jesus, the more convinced I am that he wasn’t kidding. He was declaring war on our rational, limited view of reality and demanding that we redraw the lines of what is possible. He doesn’t want us to believe that only he can do impossible things. He wants us to live as though we can do them too. Jesus invites every believer into something more. More than routines, more than deadlines, more than ordinary. Inside every human being, God has put an ache to be great, and the Spirit of Jesus calls each of us to respond.

I remember the first time the weight of Jeremiah 29:13 settled on my soul. It’s here that God plainly states what it will take to experience real relationship with him in this life: “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (NASB). All your heart. That’s what it takes. Half your heart doesn’t get you there with God.

Imagine for a minute what your life would look like if this truth were applied, if you actually redirected your attention toward relation- ship with God as your central goal in life. How would life be different if your personal pursuit of him eclipsed your career ambitions, your desire for new comforts, your hobbies, your recreation—even your family and friends?

Does that sound extreme? Of course it does. But in light of the cross and the truth of eternity, it also sounds like the only practical way to live. Something deep on the inside calls out to you right now, even as you read these words, because you were created to do something great. Something more. You can’t settle for a dull, distant, spiritual life.

It’s up to you and me. God’s Spirit on the inside of us is calling. Will you settle for your current level of spiritual experience, or will you dive deeper? Will you respond to the call of God and even rearrange the way you live so that relationship with him becomes the central goal of your life?

I want to invite you to a funeral. It may sound a little strange, but sometimes a funeral is necessary. At this funeral, we will bury the old ordinary you—your ordinary life, ordinary faith, ordinary prayer, ordinary routines—and replace ordinary with something greater. It will require significant change, but the change is possible by God’s Holy Spirit. Everything begins with you saying yes.

Taken from Bury Your Ordinary by Justin Kendrick. Used by permission from David C Cook.

Justin Kendrick is the author of Bury Your Ordinary and lead pastor of Vox Church, which he founded in 2011 with a small group of friends on the doorstep of Yale University. Since then, Vox has grown to multiple locations across New England. The dream of Vox Church is to see the least-churched region of the U.S. become the most spiritually vibrant place on earth. Justin and his wife live outside New Haven, Connecticut with their four children.

Photograph © Ameer Basheer, used with permission