Make No Little Plans Here!
It has always seemed to me that in some unfortunate way the language of dreams, visions and setting enormous goals are the fluent vernacular of only the very young. When I was a little girl, it was so easy to say what I wanted to do ... who I wanted to be ... what I wanted to accomplish “when I grow up”.
I want to be a mommy ...
a fireman ...
a doctor ...
an astronaut ...
president.
I want to write books ...
sing songs ...
own a bakery ...
travel around the world ...
be a millionaire by the time I am 30.
How truly sad that we have minimized the ability to dream authentically and to plan prodigiously only to a certain immature and naive segment of the population.
I attended my university’s Homecoming celebration this past week-end and walking on that acreage which houses the buildings of a world-class institution of higher learning, always challenges me to dream again!
The sacred ground of my youth calls me to dream colossal dreams ... embrace a stupendous vision ... plan to move immense mountains!
And never, never, never use failure or your age as an excuse!
I serve on the Alumni Board at this Christian University and while there an generally ensconced in unending meetings, listening to financial reports and looking at the viability of 50 year old buildings.
However ... that’s not really why I am there.
I am really there to set foot on a piece of earthly real estate that stirs my heart to dream with the possibility of heaven’s involvement again.
Going “home” to my university, has the precise effect on me as would that intangible mirage known as “the fountain of youth”!
As I walk up the stairs of the library, sit in a front-row seat at chapel and visit with the current students in my old dormitory, my heart is rejuvenated and my mind begins to imagine all of the possibilities of life that yet lie ahead of me. I am dreaming again!
Every time I go back to ORU, I am miraculously 20 years old again and I begin to speak easily and fluently the language of dreams and visions!
When I pull up to 7777 South Lewis Avenue, my heart begins to beat rapidly and I initiate an internal inventory of “Let’s count your dreams! Let’s take stock of future plans and visions!”
The motto of my University is appropriately this quintuplet of words: “Make no little plans here!”
Those 5 powerful words are everywhere!!
They are on the desks of professors.
“Make no little plans here!”
They are on t-shirts, coffee mugs and posters in the campus bookstore.
“Make no little plans here!”
They are on every 5-year, 10-year and 20-year plan of which the University has ever conceived.
“Make no little plans here!”
Those 5 words are written on my heart and on the heart of every one of the 26,000 graduates of Oral Roberts University.
“Make no little plans here!”
My prayer for you today is that you will return to a place that forces you to dream again.
My hope is that you will never be content with mediocrity nor with the status quo.
My challenge to all of you, regardless of age, is to dream again!
Make no little plans here!
Purpose in your heart to do something that is so grand and so impossible that without the help of God, you will sorely fail.
When Abram was weary with the constraints of age and saw no possibility of anything about his life ever changing, God took Abram outside to count the stars!
“And God took Abram outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.‘ And God said to Abram, ‘So shall your descendants be.” Genesis 15:5
God still loves to take his children outside of their pain, their small thinking and their weariness. He does it to me every time I return to my alma mater.
God still loves to confront each one of us with His vast plan and His infinite ability.
When God took Abram outside to play “Let’s Count the Stars!”, Abram and God weren’t actually looking at twinkling explosions of gaseous materials found light years away, but they were looking at the faces of all of the generations yet to come! They were gazing at the lives of men and women who would exist because Abram’s tired, old seed would come in contact with the miraculous power of God!
When you play “Let’s Count the Stars!” with God, what are you seeing?
Books yet to be written!
Songs yet to be composed!
Laws to be changed!
Orphans to be rescued!
Souls to be saved!
Businesses to be built!
Missions trips to go on!
I pray that you will take the time to go outside with God and count the stars of possibility with Him. I can tell you ... there is nothing quite like it!
