Countercultural: Dream Small!

Happy Chinese New Year!  It's great to meet up with family, wish each other well for the coming year, and have an excuse to eat some of our favourite things :D  In anticipation of that, I went to exercise almost every day of this week, before the feasting begins!

I like listening to music when I'm exercising on my own in the morning, and Spotify is a great way to find new songs!  Just this week, I heard some lyrics over my earphones that were so oddly jarring that they compelled me to stop, rewind and play them again to check that I'd heard them right.

We are constantly bombarded by parents, teachers, bosses, self-help gurus and the media - dream big!  The world's heroes are the people like Elon Musk, who plans to fly ships to Mars; or the titans who build billion-dollar unicorns out of bits of code; or stars accumulating billions of views on Youtube.  The whole thing is reinforced by the social media phenomenon.  Probably 90% of the stuff people post is humble bragging about the amazing stuff they've done.  So it feels like we're in a world where people are expected to do amazing things, and are in fact doing amazing things all day long!

We can't help being conditioned by these things.  So when I heard the lyrics of the song "Dream Small", my mind did a double-take and told me, this is dumb.  Dream small?  Whaddayamean??  Skip this track!

But a still small voice told me, hang on a minute.  Listen and reflect.

Dream small, don't buy the lie you've gotta do it all
Just let Jesus use you where you are
One day at a time
Live well
Loving God and others as yourself
Find little ways where only you can help
With His great love
A tiny rock can make a giant fall
So dream small

I guess we all fall into the trap of thinking that we can only be significant if we do big important things.  If we're rich, if we're famous, if we're successful.  If we have a big house, a big car, a big following.  Or even for charity work, if we set up big networks, raise huge funds, and help thousands.  And so we're all told - dream big, dream big, dream big!

To our well-drilled psyches, the wildly countercultural exhortation to dream small is jarring.  Why would anyone choose to be insignificant?

But as I sat and listened, I realised that the lyricist wasn't saying we should aim for insignificant things.  He's actually saying - the little things are the significant things.  Find little ways where only you can help.  I'm the only person who can love my wife as a husband.  I'm the only person who can encourage my children as a father.  I'm the only person having lunch with a colleague, on a particular Tuesday afternoon, and who has a particular life experience to share with him.  I'm the only person who's right there, on a Friday evening, with the old resident who's just lost her husband.  Being literally the only person who can do the job - that's cosmic-level significance!

No one would say Mother Teresa was insignificant, but she understood this principle well - she wisely observed "we can do no great things, only small things with great love."  And that's exactly what she did - just do lots and lots of small things, meeting one person's needs at a time.

It's visiting the widow down the street
Or dancing on a Friday with your friend with special needs
These simple moments change the world
Of course there's nothing wrong with bigger dreams
Just don't miss the minutes on your way to "bigger things"
Cause these simple moments change the world

To be clear - there's nothing wrong with doing great things.  God calls both the great and the small.  But He wants us to know - there's significance in the minutes.  They change the world more than we think, and perhaps more than even our big dreams.

It's easier said than done to embrace significance in the small things. My human ego wants the world to see - see how successful I am!  See how well I've done!  See what an impact I'm making on the world!  Look at me!  Look at me!  Look at me!

But in the end, where do I find my significance?  In what I've done?  Or what God has done?  Am I concerned about my glory or His?  Does my life say "look at me!" or "look at Him"?

So this Chinese New Year of the small yet significant Rat, I wish you 万事如意 (I guess literally, 10,000 things to go as intended), and the encouragement that you are significant!  May these 10,000 things be full of the good that only you can bring to the people around you, and may God meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19)!

Add up the small things and watch them grow bigger
The God who does all things makes oceans from rivers
Find little ways where only you can help
With His great love
A tiny rock can make a giant fall
Five loaves and two fish could feed them all
So dream small

 (Dream Small; Josh Wilson (2018))

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