end of day @ onething

Charlie Hall led worship this evening at Onething...to a first night crowd larger than last year's ever got to be. We're off to a kickin' start.

Mike preached tonight - a message that had strains of the same message that I heard from him years ago when I came to my first conference at Kansas City. He's preached variations of it over the years, often under the title '7 longings of the human heart'. One of his key points surrounds the human heart's innate desire for greatness, and how that desire is a gift from God.

We goof around with that desire. We deny it, then we feign humility while plotting our own exaltation all along. Rarely do we stare ourselves in the mirror and admit it - we yearn for greatness. Perhaps it's because we're afraid that once we admit that we want it, we'll have to admit how far we are from achieving it. Few actually embrace it, gaining an opportunity to find it in plan of God for our lives...learning that they're not the only ones who yearn for greatness. God yearns for their greatness, even as they cringe at their own banal lives.

How would your life change if you realized that both you and God had the same intention - for you to achieve greatness? Granted, you may be pursuing greatness of a lesser kind...the kind involving cars and homes and job titles. He's dreaming of greatness of a greater kind. He's dreaming of an eternal greatness. One that won't depreciate or be outsourced. One He both bestows and enjoys.

I reflected back on hearing this message the first time around 2001. Kelsey and I were church planting (horribly, might I add). I yearned for significance as I understood it...and felt like a loser. Our church plant was full of warm hearted twenty somethings, innovative and fun, but sure not busting at the seams. I wanted to run the Purpose Driven Church through the shredder. Mike made me believe that there was another measure of greatness - not that numerical success was to be scorned, but at the end of the day it was not the indicator of the presence nor absence of greatness.

In that regard, we can all be great...if we want that sort of greatness.