Day Twenty-Four

DREAM BIG

And while [Jesus] was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

—MARK 14:3–6 ESV

Ever since third grade, my big dream was to teach school. I’m bossy by nature. Being a teacher is a great outlet for bossy people like me.

Midway through my senior year at the University of Georgia, right before I began my student-teaching experience, my campus pastor at the Wesley Foundation, Bob Beckwith, came to me with an opportunity. Wesley allows students to stay on after their senior year as unpaid interns, and Bob wanted me to be the women’s ministry intern.

My big dream of teaching was in view, and all I had to do was fill out the right county applications and try to find a teaching job.

On the other hand, interning sounded awesome. Many of my good friends were interning, including my best friend and roommate, and I had grown so much within that ministry that the opportunity to serve in return felt right too.

But it was unpaid, and to intern at Wesley I had to raise $15,000.

Fifteen thousand dollars.

God’s dream for me was so much greater than the one I’d been planning all along.

On a Saturday morning before Christmas break, I sat in a comfy chair and read Mark 14:3–6. The woman with a flask of ointment gave everything she had to Jesus. Her heart, her sacrifice, and one year’s wages.

I knew I was being asked to push pause on my big dream—to give up a year’s wages as an offering to Jesus to serve college students and to minister to Jesus Himself—what I now see as God’s biggest dream for my life.

I did end up being a schoolteacher for five years after that. It still amazes me how God’s dream for me was so much greater than the one I’d been planning all along.

Dream big. Be brave enough to believe that as much as you could want, God could give to you. We are meant to make a big impact on the planet. Bigger than we could ever dream up on our own.

BE BRAVE: List one or two really big dreams you have for your life.