Bigger Than Your Dreams

 It's the beginning of a new year and so many are talking about hopes and goals for the coming months. It's that time when we all reflect and regain perspective and come up with fresh dreams for what's ahead and renewing desire for as yet unfulfilled objectives or aspirations. On this January night, I'm listening to a discussion among several women of faith about the place of dreams in our journey and how to lay our wants and hopes at the feet of the only One who truly knows. And one of them shares a story about something she and her husband prayed for years before, believing a promise God had given them regarding a piece of property that we wished to use someday for ministry. She went on to say that God did indeed answer that prayer... many years later. It just turned out that their prayers were simply part of something bigger God was doing that didn't directly involve them. I'm left with a lingering thought...

What if our dreams and the things we hope for are actually just pieces in a larger story? What if the prayers we pray and the hopes we long for are really not about us directly at all? 

Hours later, I come across a fascinating article about the little-known stained glass artists Margaret Rope. I'd never heard of her until now, but talk about an interesting life! After attending art college as a young woman in early 20th century England, she had already begun to make a reputation for herself as one of the finest stained glass masters in the country. She'd explored and undertaken some secular commissions as a student but then settled on religious and church commissions the rest of her career. Surprisingly, not long after graduation, she made the choice to become a nun and devote herself to her faith. Many thought this was a huge waste of talent but the convent she joined realized that her abilities could perhaps help bring in funds for them and allowed her to continue taking commissions and utilizing her gifts. 

But the difficult part was that her position as a nun meant that she could no longer see the completed production of her art due to the nuns never really leaving the convent. She instead would have to make the initial drawings, order the glass to be sent to her (which would arrive by train in the town where the convent was), the glass would then be painted by her and then sent back by train to the studio that would fire it in kilns and then sent it back to her for final approval. In all the back and forth, Margaret only got to see her designs in part. The window was then assembled and installed in its final location - it's artist and creator only having it seen it's pieces and never the assembled thing. The rare exception was when the nuns were moving to a new convent a few miles away and the journey took them past one of Margaret's completed windows in a nearby church. This was the only time she ever caught sight of a project in its entirety. 

Imagine living your life with only glimpses of the pieces and never the final picture! Yet, isn't this where most of us find ourselves as we journey through life? The things we pursue, the desires we have, the prayers we petition, the hopes and dreams we hold are really just small pieces in the bigger picture God is creating. We are only submitting our little part to Him for Him to use in the grander design. A lot of what we do and wish for in this life will only be seen by God for its part in the greater story. Like Margaret, we will never get to fully see this side of Heaven what the finished product is intended to be. Our vision or aspiration is only a piece of the whole. 

Yet knowing this actually takes some pressure off of us in a way. Once we realize that all we're really responsible for is making sure that our little pieces - our small part in the larger project - matter and are useful to the Master, then where they fit in or how they are crafted is no longer up to us. Once we place our pieces into His hands, the mosaic-design is solely up to Him. He gets to choose how our shattered bits get redeemed and placed into His divine masterpiece. Our part is to simply hand them over... to realize that this whole thing called life never was about our own plan anyway. This image He's creating is bigger than us and way bigger than our personal dreams. 

While God does put desires in our hearts and we do sometimes get to see the fulfillment of hopes and prayers that matter to us, the larger design of our life as a whole won't be seen until eternity. And we have to be okay with that. We have to let God craft the story and the picture as He wants it and remember that we're only a small but meaningful part. Many others have handed over their pieces too, and God is using them all to make something that only He can envision. No shard of our lives is wasted in the design either. However broken our stories may seem, even the most busted up parts of us are still seen as valuable to the Master's plan. And what a beautiful thing to think of: people all through history giving these pieces to God and knowing that each of our fractured bits is being put to use in the hands of a capable and loving God! 

As you pray on and hope for certain things this year, keep remembering that you are just a small part of a much bigger thing in play. God has a design in mind so wonderful that it would beat anything you would ever come up with, and He's asking you to trust Him with those desires on your heart and watch what He will do with them. You may or may not see how they fit into the bigger picture but you will always be able to believe in the One who is crafting the design. So keep doing your part and giving your life-pieces over to Him. As Jesus said so long ago, "You don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will" (John 13:7). And in the meantime, every piece you trustingly submit to Him matters... perhaps more than you know.