Nicole Caldwell-Gross - The Big Picture: Seeing Gods Dream for Your Life

JEVON CALDWELL-GROSS

NICOLE CALDWELL-GROSS

SEEING GODS DREAM FOR YOUR LIFE

Abingdon Press / Nashville

THE BIG PICTURE

SEEING GODS DREAM FOR YOUR LIFE

Copyright 2022 Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022935213

978-1-7910-2595-3

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.

All rights reserved.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

God, I want your dream for my life.

Nothing smaller.

Nothing limited.

Nothing inherited.

Nothing compared.

Nothing muted.

Your big, expansive dream.

Impossible for me to see without you.

Impossible for me to do without you.

Impossible for me to be without you.

Let me dream.

Let me dream.

Let me dream, again.

Our daughter Olivia looked intently, but still couldnt see it. Here was yet another homework assignment designed to increase her love for counting. The sheet was covered with small dots and corresponding numbers. To a young mind that was still learning to count to one hundred, the dots seemed so random. She stared hopelessly at the page trying to identify the image, with no luck. The first attempt at connecting the dots by random plotting proved unsuccessful. We could always see the image, but she couldnt. Frustration grew. Confidence lowered. We had to reread the directions. When cooler heads prevailed, Olivia started with the number 1 and began connecting the dots, one by one. Slowly but surely, the pencil made the connections to the ascending numbers and a picture started to emerge. I could see it, but she had to finish the process to recognize it. After the last dot was connected, a familiar image was now visible. Frustration lowered. Confidence increased. Then the coloring commenced after a verbal affirmation of our childs own work. The dots were not so random after all.

Life is not as easy as a connect-the-dots puzzle, but its quite similar. You wont be able to see the picture at first. You think you will, but you wont. If you believe you can predict it, youll be disappointed. Much of what God will do in your life, you wont see coming. You will try your best to make sense of whats in front of you, but it will seem confusing and disconnected in the moment. We see a dot of God here. We experience a dot of God there, and another just up ahead, but we arent sure how it all connects or if it connects at all. The picture will be hard to decipher. It will look like a random scattering of dots. We encounter familiar feelings of frustration. It leaves us trying to connect and make sense out of seemingly disjointed moments. What was the purpose behind this setback? Why did God bring this person into my life? Why did God let them leave? What is God trying to show me? The people we meet will appear random, the decisions pointless, and the places insignificant. You wont see the big picture.

Sren Kierkegaard once said, Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. This is an affirmation of our willingness to reflect on the past, but its also a confession of the things we miss in the moment. Its an acknowledgment of our inability to truly understand the present. We forge ahead, pushing through our joys and sorrows. However, most of us can agree that many of the lessons and transformative experiences we have are understood only in hindsight. We see the valueafter the fact. This is especially true when our experiences are painful or difficult. We thank God for those instances when we can file them away as things of the past. We embrace the lessons learned when they are finally in our rearview mirror. But lets be honest: they dont feel like that in the moment. The lessons feel like punishments. What we now call a blessing once felt like a curse. The source of todays joy was a previous thorn in our side. Its difficult to see or even recognize the value of Gods movement in our lives in the present.

Another writer describes it in this manner:

When things go unnoticed for too long, bad things begin to happen. A leaky roof turns into a major repair of an entire wall; unattended weeds eventually squelch the growth of the vegetables; a not that big-a-deal lump over time becomes cancerous; an undisciplined child later in life lacks a healthy sense of boundary. Time has a way of forcing things to get the attention they need. Many in our culture have lived with a sense of unnoticedness for too long. And its time for us to take notice.

This book is an invitation to take notice. Its a journey of discovering and rediscovering the presence of God in our lives. Its an invitation into the continual process of connecting the seemingly random moments that may have gone unnoticed or overlooked. Its courageously looking back in order to look forward. When we start connecting the dots, we see not only a God that has been present, but a God that is still very much active in our lives today. Because its only when the dots start to connect that we see beyond the moment, beyond this season, and begin to see the Big Picture. Its here that frustration decreases and confidence increases. This will be important on our journey together, for this reason: most of what God will do in your life you wont see coming. You think you will, but you wont.

CHAPTER 1

I CANT SEE IT