too big vs. too small

It's slowly getting easier for me to concentrate (which I'm sure will change again tomorrow) so apart from reading my textbook I started reading "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction" By Eugene Peterson. I'm only two chapters in but so far it's a quality read. I've honestly started reading this book three times in the past five years and have yet to make it half way, but I've never enjoyed it as much as I do now so I'm sure this will be the time I succeed!

However, I don't want to write about my awful reading habits I want to tell you about Eugene Peterson! In the preface of his book he writes about prayer and how his generation had a strong belief in praying the psalms. Furthermore, he talks about all the generations before him who also had a strong belief in praying the psalms; but when he looks at the current state of our world, Christians aren't interested in praying the psalms. He then stated that he believed people weren't praying the psalms because they weren't written using common language. One day, Peterson decided he would translate the psalms into lay language so that Christians could once again pray the psalms. Years later, the Message was completed. I loved reading this story because I wonder how far Peterson would've gotten if he had one day decided to translate the entire bible into lay language. The idea of translating the whole bible probably would've been too daunting and disheartening, but because Peterson just wanted to translate the psalms (he actually just started with the 15 psalms of ascent) it didn't seem too impossible a task.

This got me thinking because how often do we look at the things we want to accomplish and immediately decide they will be too difficult so we end up giving up before we even start. Furthermore, how often do we see a small task we want to accomplish but we don't see anything beneficial coming out of it so we quit the small tasks because it seems too inadequate? There are many things in my heart I sincerely want to accomplish before my time on earth is up, but how many things have I forgone because they were either too big or not big enough? How about you? I think it's time we stop forfeiting the things we're called to because we are either afraid of failing or being seen as insufficient. Let's take hold of our callings no matter how big or small because in reality, we don't know the effect our decisions can have, the impact our works can create, and the influence our lives can make.