Ideas come in various ways. Ideas that have changed the world did not always come in a big way. In fact what seemingly looked like small ideas have gone a long way to make a big difference. But these small ideas are easily passed by in their formative stages. They almost come as small seeds, quite insignificant, but if they are given surgical attention they blow up and become big.
I want to allude to three scriptures that demonstrate the idea of small to great. The may show us why we miss greatness even when it comes through minute doors.
Zach 4:9 – Who has despised the day of small beginnings
Job 8:7 – though thy beginning be small thy later end should greatly increase
Isa 60:22 – A little one shall become a thousand a small one a great nation
The perspective of God is always contrary to that of man. God is a projector of faith. He sees things in fullness. Without going into deep exposition of the scriptures above lets pick out points to consider.
Small ideas can be despised. The word despise is put strongly in the Hebrew as disrespect. What you do not respect will not grow in your life. The notion of respect is derived from the concept of Value. Value breeds Attention and attention breeds Responsibility, which eventually breeds Authority. All the ideas I did not respect did not take long to fizzle away. Sometimes we wonder why we are not being entrusted with novel ideas in particular fields. Maybe we should be asking whether the previous ideas accorded to us in the same fields where stewarded with respect. Opportunities are birthed when we invest attention to certain ideas. So do not disrespect the small notion the Holy Spirit is placing upon you heart to pursue.
Small ideas can also greatly increase. The idea in the Hebrew from the text (Job 8:7) has the meaning of vehement, wholly and speed. Vehement is the emotion lent to the idea. It increases with force, as it rolls out it gains strength. Some ideas seem so elusive until they are put to action and that is when we begin to experience their power. Small ideas increase wholly, meaning they are not deficient and lack in nothing. They also may have a surprise element of speed. Speed is only useful when vision and direction of the idea is achieved. But as Job would say the idea would greatly increase with vehemence, wholesomeness and speed and we better have faith to believe that will happen with our small ideas.
In Isaiah a little one will become a thousand. The word a thousand is eleph, which is symbolically represented by the ox head and means head especially of a family. The small idea will become the head, the captain. The argument of the preceding paragraphs promotes the principle that small ideas can become significant. It alludes to the fact that it is easy to underestimate ideas at their seminal and seed stage. But what are the circumstances that lead to potential of small ideas?
Circumstances that Lead to Potential of Small Ideas
There are many circumstances that would lead to the potential of small ideas but I want us to consider only few of them.
Threats of Urgency – 2Kings 4:1-7 (Elisha and the Widow)
Sometimes our small reserved ideas can be lifesavers when someone discerning points them to us and gives us direction on how to trade with them. This was the case of a widow pushed to the wall by creditors who threatened to enslave her two sons if she failed to pay up. Her husband though possibly a prophet intern and a man who feared God was dead. Apparently he seems that he left them in debt. The woman went to the discerning man (the Prophet) Elisha and stated her case. Elisha asked her a question most of us should ask sometimes when we are bound in such situations. ‘What do you have in your house’? Pressure can blind us to opportunity. Sometimes it takes people outside of the pressure to clarify our effective albeit small Ideas to come out of threatening situations. Seems like she had something that could fill any vessel that came he way. The limitation was not the pot of oil but the amount of vessels she was able to borrow. The pot of oil (small idea) was excessively sufficient to feed the market. Your idea carries the same potential.
Circumstances of Impasse – 1 Sam 17:16 – Goliaths 40 Days
God has this penchant of bringing down seemingly mighty things with small insignificant things. David and Goliath is a story that has been told and retold. It carries with it the idea of the underdog and the giant. But within the story is a portion that reveals that the Philistines took over the battle and reconfigured the rules of engagement – a choice warrior for another. They had Goliath and the Jews had none yet. The portion of scripture that interests me infers to duration it took for the Jews to find a worthy aggressor. It took forty days. For forty days everything was edgy and on a standstill. The side with the vantage point had an intimidating giant of a man whose daily taunts froze the entire Jewish army. We all may know the unfolding of the story that a young shepherd lad came unashamed, untrained, and uncultured to the ways of the seasoned soldiers. Just like the giant had changed the rules of engagement and froze the entire army, so did the shepherd boy disrupt the rules with what seemed like uncomely tact and instruments of war. Small ideas when tucked within the resolve to unpack God can disrupt a stalemate within a raging industry ran by a monopolistic captain of industry. The potential of small ideas is seen when they are audaciously pitched against giant ideas. A man with a small idea but with the embodiment of a God in covenant with his own will fell a giant any day.
Proportional Nonsense – Mustard Seed, Fishes and Loaves – Mtt 17:20/14:17
The two verses noted above subtly reveal the mind and working of God. His methods are consistently in opposition to the schooling of how the world works. In his words he posits the notion small faith as small as a mustard seed echoes powerfully to uproot issues of mountainous proportions. The second scripture the lunch of a young boy is used as the seed point of feeding at least five thousand men. In both texts small things are used to disproportionately to outdo big things. That is proportional nonsense, which means it makes no sense. God’s perspective is different from ours unless we receive him with a renewed mind. There are ideas that do not make sense in the schooling of the world that God can invest in you which will end up amplifying your capacities to move massive problems. Equally there are those ideas, which could easily fail the capacity test but when broken and put to use will easily with amazement sustain the mass market. The schooling of the world places its audacity in the dominance of big things. Small steps of obedience will usually characterize a walk of Faith. It is in these steps that grace is availed to scale that which is considered humanly impossible.
Circumstances that reveal the potential of small ideas are seen as we have explained above in the threats of urgency, situations with stalemates and as proportions that do not make sense.
Ecosystems of Small Ideas
Let me begin by positing the notion that Ideas do not exist for themselves but are inherently entities of community. This means even though an idea can come through and individual and may even seem to benefit an individual it cannot do so in isolation of other people. What the individual becomes because of his idea(s) informs what he becomes to other people. A community of people is necessary for Ideas to be born nurtured and executed. Community is an ecosystem of fertilization, fusion and germination.
Ideas need at least three kinds of people to provoke them to see the light of day and mature. You need those
- That Encourage and Challenge
- That Pray and Inspire Action
- That Critic and offer Accountability
Encourage and Challenge
The first time I blogged online was in 1999. The skillset and technology to do so in my country had barely flourished among people. Pockets of access to Internet were budding in different locations in my city therefore I had an idea or two how to set up my blog on Blogger. I also had the opportunity to see what people were doing in other parts of the world. Internet was expensive but the freedom and joy to read a blog from other parts of the world was worth it. I identified a blog I wanted to write for but more than that I had this friend of mine a bit older who was more tech savvy and was kind enough to share his laptop with me. After days of pushing to write an essay for a blog I had identified he pulled me aside and asked if I had made headway. He had been encouraging me and I would bounce off my small ideas on him. So one day he made me sit down in a restaurant and tasked me to finish my essay – talk of challenge. I finished it in a sitting and saved it on a floppy disk (now you know how old I am) and emailed it to a waiting editor in Northern America. I got published and made a contact with a person I had never met before. You need someone around your small idea that can encourage (breathe life) and challenge you.
Pray and Inspire Action
Prayer should inspire action. Most of us pray and wait for long before we take action. There are things we can wait for but the nature of prayer is to inspire action. The will of God is downloaded on the earth through actionable interpretation. So get people to pray with you, an idea nurtured in prayer is fuelled by the economy of heaven. I remember a time in my life when a friend of mine took it upon himself to pray and fast for me for a day. I needed direction around some publishing idea and content development entity. A day later my friend showed up with more than ‘I have prayed for you’. He sat me down and he brought out slips of white paper with scribbles of black ink. He had itemized portions of actionable points that clarified the direction I should take. I have kept those pieces of papers to this date. My friend on the other hand has in his own way been instrumental in keeping me accountable especially when we meet however long it take for that to happen. You need people to pray with you but also prayer that is actionable.
Critic and Accountability
Critic comes from a family of the Greek word krisis.. The common English rendition of this word is crisis. Generally we attribute to this word the idea of being in a state of undue pressure. Krisis is defined as judgment. It is judgment not in the sense of one being judged but in the sense of one making proper judgment. So being in a crisis carries with it the notion of undue pressure but in actual sense of the word the pressure comes from the judgment or decision that needs to be made or arrived at. So to borrow from it then a Critic is a person who offers valuable judgment that drives your idea to a progressive path of execution. We need critics because the offer discernment and wisdom. They give us the empathy for revision or reconfiguration of our ideas. In the same vein a discerning critic therefore also stands as a good individual you can be accountable to. We are predisposed to be accountable to people we respect and consider to be truthful. They are like surgeons, the operation is deep and sometimes painful but it is for our greater good. Choose wisely a critic who you can be accountable to so that your small idea can see the light of day.
Passion and Persuasion
When the Father had an Idea of bringing the Messiah into the earth he settled on a very unassuming young lady. For somebody to be a carrier and executor of an idea they have to be persuaded. The proposal of the Father to Mary akin to most of the ideas we get looked impossible. She asked the question we get arrested by when the reality of the idea begins to settle in – How shall it be … ? This from the surface looks like a question of Method and it is to a large extent. But the answer Mary is given by the angel covers the method and resolve. Ideas need method and resolve. He says ‘… the Holy Spirit shall overshadow you …’ the idea is that Mary would encounter the potency of the Spirit – the dunamis – power. There is a sort of divine marinating of the potency of the Spirit. in some places it means … Mary will be enveloped in a haze of brilliancy. This is after the spirit has come over her, the idea of ‘come’ suggests at least two things influence or happen upon. We are not further from Mary. Gabriel may not come to your room but the delivery of God Ideas has never been outside of the assistance of the potency of the Spirit. Considering the fact that Mary has to shoulder the stigma of becoming pregnant as a virgin, she needs insurmountable persuasion to feed her passion of carrying the Seed of God.
We live in a day where when Passion is mentioned the excitement that is aroused excites the psyche. The passion needed to feed the resolve to stay and host a God idea goes beyond that and it does not always carry a smiley face. It needs assisted persuasion. The ideas of God beckon unto us to be partakers of a form of enveloping of the Spirit and his potency. You will stand against the status quo with an idea that could incriminate you. The only way to make it through the crowd is to rely on the potency of the Spirit. It is from this potency that resolve is fuelled. How shall it be? You will be enveloped with brilliancy. Even a small God given Idea receives the sending of a willing Spirit to nurture.
