This past weekend, I visited a place called Amplify Church. I did not know what to expect but a friend of mine said she enjoyed going there and would be attending the Sunday evening service and invited me to join her.
Before I went, I found that I could go onto YouTube to watch past services and could even watch live streams of their every Sunday morning. I found this fascinating and it definitely piqued my interest as I love making my own YouTube videos and I learned through live streaming about the power creating content on demand can provide for a community.
Before attending, I watched this video which gave me a good idea of what it would be like:
While there were quite a few messages I found to resonate well with my own beliefs, one in particular really stood out for me: managing expectations.
Managing Expectations
The service started out with a live band on stage complete with a guitarist, keyboard player, bass guitar, drummer, as well as 2 male and 2 female vocalists. This wasn’t like the church I had grown up in where the only instrument playing was an old organ on the balcony and the priest’s voice. This felt more like a concert. Energy was high and the crowd was full of young excited visitors eager to hear what pastor Jason Howard had to share.
Jason began to speak of an experience he had with his kids recently playing with Play-Doh. He mentioned how when he was a kid, you got a max of 5 colors to choose from. Those were all you had to work with. You weren’t going to making any masterpieces with Play-Doh when we were kids.
However, nowadays, you’ve got full complete kits of Play-Doh to build complex masterpieces like Burgers that look like they belong in a McDonald’s commercial and you’d legit think could be a complete super-sized combo.
So Jason continued to explain how his kids were playing with this burger Play-Doh set and expecting to create this beautiful Play-Doh masterpiece of a burger that would look so good they’d want to eat it for real!
Well, needless to say, we all know how this story turns out. The end result is usually a pile of Play-Doh that look like two squished pancakes with a random brown slab of muck in the center and all expectations are shattered!
The kids got upset and didn’t want to play with Play-Doh anymore and think they’re no good at playing with Play-Doh! They get discouraged and think they aren’t good at Play-Doh…or art…or aren’t skilled or talented enough to make it how it looks on the box.
We have all experienced these let-downs as children but the interesting parallel that Jason continued onto next is that many of us, including himself…and myself, still struggle with this issue each and every day.
He quoted Ezekiel 37:
Now if that were you or me in that valley and someone asked us if those bones could live, we would almost certainly say that they could not!
We all have our own vision of what is and isn’t possible. Whether it be bones coming to life or limitations we place on our own lives, we all have our own expectations as to how our lives will and will not play out.
“Can these bones live?”
They’re dead, dry bones…long gone from any form of life as they are specifically stated to be “very dry” to make clear that they had been that way for very long time.
“O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
Who are we to decide what is and isn’t possible?
Whether you believe it was possible for these bones to be brought back to life or not, that’s up to you to decide.
I can say from my own personal experience that the times I have accomplished my greatest achievements in my life were the times that I did not convince myself that things could not be done.
As many of you know, one of the biggest leaps of faith I took was to pursue live streaming on Twitch. When I started, I thought 3,000 followers was a huge stretch and that I probably would never reach it. By the end of my 365-day challenge, I had surpassed 30,000 followers and had reached the top 0.1% of all streamers on the entire site!
I had met thousands of new people and impacted so many people’s lives in a way that I never even knew was possible. This is what opened my eyes to the power of not limiting myself and not discouraging myself from doing what I felt compelled to do.
When I decided to follow my passion, faith, or vision of what I felt I was supposed to be doing and moved forward without any discouragement in mind, that is when I achieved my greatest accomplishments that far exceeded my expectations.
Since that day, I have had example after example when this approach has worked.
One very recent example just this past year started with a complete fear of failure that almost discouraged me from even trying in the first place. But I didn’t let fear hold me back and I managed to raise over $10,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation which is one of my most rewarded experiences of my life.
And to be honest, I still hold back almost all the time. I convince myself weekly, possibly daily of the things that I do not think are possible. Or the things that I am not motivated enough to follow through with. I have gotten much better at not being discouraged and trusting in what I am meant to be doing, but it’s not always easy.
So when I heard this verse paired with the pastor’s interpretation as it related to my own life, it really clicked and felt right to me.
I have felt this at work in my own life, in my own experiences, and I do believe that following and trusting in what you are called to do will result in accomplishments far exceeding what you ever predicted.
So while I don’t know what each of your situations and life goals look like, I just wanted to share my experience with you and I hope that it may help you see a positive path and clear vision for what steps you may want to take next.
It doesn’t always have to be a huge leap of faith like bringing dry bones back to life, but trust in what you are meant to do and decide on the first small steps that will help you move closer to the place where you are meant to be.