Make Room for Increase
It’s easy to get talked out of our dreams and live discouraged because of disappointments, things we don’t understand, and especially because of what people say about us. You need to distance yourself from people who are always trying to put limitations on you and talk you out of what God has put in your heart. Sometimes that includes the people who have known you the longest because they can see you only one way.
In the Scripture, David’s family didn’t see him as a giant killer or as a king or anything special. They discounted him. David’s father, Jesse, didn’t even bother to bring him in from the shepherds’ field when the prophet Samuel was choosing one of his eight sons as the next king of Israel. Jesse thought, “Well, it’s just David. He’s too small and so young. He’s not talented enough and doesn’t have the experience.” But people don’t determine your destiny. What they say about you and how they try to make you feel cannot stop what God has ordained for your life.
Abraham was living in a limited environment. God told him to leave his country, to leave his extended family behind and go to a land that He would show him. God was saying, “Abraham, you have to leave what’s familiar, leave what you grew up with.” I’m not suggesting that you abandon your family, but I am saying to leave behind the negative mindsets you were raised with. Leave a scarcity mentality. Leave the limitations that people have put on you. You have to make room for God to increase you. Sometimes our environment is too small. It’s like an oak tree seed planted and left to grow in a two-gallon pot. That oak tree will never become what it was created to be. It’s not because there’s something wrong with the tree. It’s because of the environment that it’s in.
In the same way, there’s nothing wrong with you. You have seeds of greatness in you. The Most High God breathed His life into you. Now make sure your pot is not too small. Make sure your environment is not holding you back. You need to be around people who inspire you, people who have gone further, people who are making a difference, not just people who are settling for the status quo. The prophet Isaiah says, “Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch forth your curtains. Lengthen your cords. Strengthen your stakes. Make room for God to do a new thing.” Tell that limited mindset, “I’m dreaming big dreams. I’m praying bold prayers. I’m expecting to go further than how I was raised.”
In the Scripture, David’s family didn’t see him as a giant killer or as a king or anything special. They discounted him. David’s father, Jesse, didn’t even bother to bring him in from the shepherds’ field when the prophet Samuel was choosing one of his eight sons as the next king of Israel. Jesse thought, “Well, it’s just David. He’s too small and so young. He’s not talented enough and doesn’t have the experience.” But people don’t determine your destiny. What they say about you and how they try to make you feel cannot stop what God has ordained for your life.
Abraham was living in a limited environment. God told him to leave his country, to leave his extended family behind and go to a land that He would show him. God was saying, “Abraham, you have to leave what’s familiar, leave what you grew up with.” I’m not suggesting that you abandon your family, but I am saying to leave behind the negative mindsets you were raised with. Leave a scarcity mentality. Leave the limitations that people have put on you. You have to make room for God to increase you. Sometimes our environment is too small. It’s like an oak tree seed planted and left to grow in a two-gallon pot. That oak tree will never become what it was created to be. It’s not because there’s something wrong with the tree. It’s because of the environment that it’s in.
In the same way, there’s nothing wrong with you. You have seeds of greatness in you. The Most High God breathed His life into you. Now make sure your pot is not too small. Make sure your environment is not holding you back. You need to be around people who inspire you, people who have gone further, people who are making a difference, not just people who are settling for the status quo. The prophet Isaiah says, “Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch forth your curtains. Lengthen your cords. Strengthen your stakes. Make room for God to do a new thing.” Tell that limited mindset, “I’m dreaming big dreams. I’m praying bold prayers. I’m expecting to go further than how I was raised.”