Guest commentary by Dave Coles
According to Wikipedia (you know, the source of all knowledge and wisdom), “Go big or go home!” is an American phrase of recent origin. GBOGH is a challenge to go all out, to put maximum effort into an activity.
COVID-19 certainly forced us to go all out. For months now, our norm has changed to live-streaming worship, emailing bulletins, a whole different way to celebrate Communion, videoconferencing session and committee meetings, videocasting kids’ church school, studying the Bible remotely and performing weddings with the happy couple and the minister wearing masks.
But COVID-19 is not the first time we have had to go big. The Old Testament contains many GBOGH stories. For example:
- When God told Noah to build an ark (Gen 6:14–16) and take two of every animal on board for a five-month voyage, you can imagine Noah’s reply might have been, “Say what?” To which God essentially said, “Go big or go home, Noah.”
- When God told Moses to stretch out his hand and part the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:1-20), you can imagine Moses replying, “You’re kidding, right?” followed by God’s admonition to GBOGH.
- When the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Land of Promise (Joshua 3), where the priests carrying the Ark had to go big by first stepping into the Jordan River at flood stage before God stopped the flow.
- When the Israelites circled the city of Jericho for a week, then blew trumpets and shouted until the city walls fell (Joshua 6:6-20).
- When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told the king he could throw them into the fiery furnace if he liked, but they would not serve the king’s gods nor worship the golden image which the king had set up (Daniel 3:17-25).
- And when Daniel stood ready to face likely death in the lion’s den (Daniel 6:1-17).
GBOGH stories are in the New Testament as well. For example:
- When Jesus went big at Cana, turning jugs of plain water into 120 gallons of fine wine (John 2:1-10).
- When the first disciples went big by walking away from their professions to follow Jesus (Luke 5:11).
- When the 72 apostles went big by going out without purse, bag or sandals to heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near (Luke 10:9).
- When three people were given money to manage, two of them went big and earned sizable returns (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-24).
- And a go big two-fer: When Ananias followed the Lord’s instruction to restore Paul’s sight after the Damascus road experience, enabling Paul to respond to Jesus’ invitation to go big by traveling some 15,000 miles on mission journeys to share the Good News.
But what about us today? Are we following in those go big footsteps, trusting that God will walk us through unsettling change?
My 4-year-old granddaughter is learning how to cross streets. Even as cars approach from multiple directions, she unhesitatingly goes big and crosses the street because she knows that grandpa is holding her hand. As she gets older, a trust in God will blossom and she will take God’s hand and go big when God calls her to join in kingdom work.
Going big does not have to be a parting of the Red Sea or a trip to the fiery furnace. Rather, going big can be sharing your faith journey with someone God puts in your path, being a volunteer kindergarten math tutor, tithing, preparing food for a ministry initiative, helping at vacation Bible school, chaperoning youth to rally events, underwriting a scholarship for a young person to go on a mission trip or being someone’s anchor during a life storm. Or going big might be an openness to screens in the sanctuary, helping get a contemporary service started (even though we might be traditional-service people) or looking at ways we can use social media to engage with our community to share the Good News.
Maybe you do not think of yourself as a Noah, a Moses or a Paul. If truth be told, I suspect Noah, Moses and Paul did not initially think of themselves as the go big people they would eventually become. And there were likely times when they probably were tempted to go home instead of going big. But, like other go big people, they pressed on because they knew God was walking with them through the go big process. Is 2020 your year to go big?
