In November of 2018, I stood in the sanctuary of our church, as I do most Sunday mornings.
That Sunday morning was no different than any other Sunday morning. In typical fashion, we rushed through our Sunday morning routine. We pulled ourselves together and chased our toddler around, all but bribing him to get dressed and out the door. We shoved our vitamins and protein bars in our mouths and poured our coffee….because, coffee.
Our son is very, we’ll call it, independent. He loves to do things his way and we are acclimated to giving him the freedom to figure most things out on his own. It is with great patience most days…but we try our best. However, the act of getting his small body in his car seat takes an all out act of God.
Through all the craziness of a rushed Sunday morning, we made it. We did it. We got our bodies put together enough to be seen in public, our teeth clean enough to speak to other humans, and our son excited enough to go visit his friends in the nursery.
Whew. I was already exhausted.
Once worship started, I could feel the sense of lackluster and distraction fill my mind. I tried hard to fill my head with the symphony of audible delight dancing from the stage to my awaiting ear. It didn’t work. I prayed hard, asking God what was wrong with me.
I tried to take captive my thoughts.
I wasted all of worship feeling distracted and unenthusiastic. But God doesn’t waste anything, does He?
It was near the end of the last song when I very clearly heard the words “Your reach is bigger than you know”.
I gazed around. I searched for the words on the screen. I tried to humanize the sound of this sentence. I tried to say it was some weird comment from the person sitting behind me. In an attempt to deny His words, I turned around to peer at the person behind me and found nothing but empty chairs.
I couldn’t deny it any longer. This was Him. Woah. If God is telling me that my reach is bigger than I know, what does that mean? I took a note in my phone and left it there for months on end, never looking at it again.
Today, during a period of time when my independent toddler refused to nap, God revealed this truth to me again. “Your reach is bigger than you know”.
As I looked down from my laptop during our “quiet time” this beautiful site is how I was greeted. My son could have sprawled over any of the 80 inches of our king size bed to take his quiet time. He instead decided to sit on my feet, just beyond the work I told him I had to do.
I realized in that moment that my reach is bigger than I could ever imagine. I know that what I do today will impact his tomorrow. I know that I am leading by example. I know that he won’t always want to snuggle on me, which is why, today, I cherish his closeness.
You, too, have a reach that is far greater than you realize!
It is time to stop silencing yourself. It is time to stop minimizing yourself. It is time to embrace who you were created to be. It is time to recognize the power in your potential.