It starts to happen when you lose perspective on what matters. Discouragement. Discouragement over drudgery.



If you’re anything like me, you’re a dreamer. Not just a dreamer, but a BIG dreamer. The thought of writing the book doesn’t satisfy me. I wanna write the book, sell a million copies, cast the movie and score the soundtrack.

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I dream big. I dream big, because I want to do big things God. You might think, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do big things for God.” And you’d be right. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The problem begins when we slip into divine discontentment. The time between our big dreams, and our mundane reality.

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I broke down while washing the dishes a few days ago. Big, snotty, ugly cry and all. “This isn’t right!” I’d tell myself, “I need to be doing so much more! I need to be doing something important! I need to be winning souls! I need to be moving mountains! I need to be serving God!”

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Yet there I was—no book, no movie— standing over a sink of hot, soapy water, wondering where the heck in my mere 21-years I’d gone wrong with my life.

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“This isn’t the plan. Wasn’t I supposed to do something significant by now? What about all those scriptures that say I’m not too young? Or that nothing is impossible? What about all the Joseph’s and David’s and Esther’s who changed the world? God, I feel like I’m failing You.”

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I looked at the mundane list of things around me that needed to be done that day—washing the dishes, sorting the laundry, cleaning the toilet— and never before had I felt like such a disappointment in the eyes of God. I felt like George Bailey.

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“It’s A Wonderful Life” is my favorite movie. I could seriously sit down and watch it every night for the rest of my life and not get tired of it, and it’s not just because Jimmy and Donna are adorable.

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The character of George Bailey wanted to do something big and important with his life. He wanted to travel the world and build enormous skyscrapers that changed the face of cities, but somewhere along the way, he got sucked into a life he hated. His good spirited nature led him to a life full of ordinary tasks. Tasks he never pictured himself doing, tasks that were, in his eyes, unimportant. He, much like myself, fancied his life worthless.

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After wrestling with suicide and a divine appointment, what I love about the end of the film, is that what the audience sees in George Bailey the entire movie, he finally sees in himself. He realizes had he not done all those so-called “unimportant” tasks, the world, or at least a small portion of it, wouldn’t have been the same. He HAD in fact done something big and important with his life, and it wasn’t by traveling the world or building an enormous skyscraper either. It was by simply serving those around him through the smallest of chores.

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In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the story of a master who is leaving for a long trip, so he entrusts three of his servants with his money, each of them given an amount that matched their abilities. The first two men invested their money wisely, and were able to give their master twice as much in return. The third man however, the one given the least amount of money, buried it for the fear he might lose it. When the master returned, he was furious because the lazy servant hadn’t made a profit. The master ultimately took the remainder of his money and cast the servant into the darkness, saying, “To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given.”

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We often dedicate our gifts and talents to use for the glory of God, and that’s great, but how often do we offer our time and ability to really get down and dirty and SERVE Him? Jesus was the ultimate example of this. Yes, He did something big and important with His life, He died for us, but His life wasn’t just one epic moment of sacrifice. It was a continuous series of menial, serving tasks that led Him to the ultimate goal of changing the world. It was doing the dishes. It was sorting the laundry. It was scrubbing the toilets.

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I’ve challenged myself with this question: Am I going to settle for discontentment in the mundane, or am I going to thank God for the opportunity to serve by getting into the dirt and washing the feet of those around me?

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This doesn’t mean you have to give up your dreams. God won’t give you a desire  to ruthlessly rip it out and see you suffer. He’s asking us, while we wait in the drab, uncomfortable middle-ground between our dreams and our reality, to be like those who didn’t loose heart and received all that was promised to them.

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—Like Joseph, who became a leader after he was a prisoner
—Like David, who became King after he was a shepherd
—Like Esther, who became a Queen after she was a orphan
—Like Jesus, who became a Savior after being a servant.

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“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”
—Helen Keller