I want to be great.

Is that so wrong? To want to be great if greatness happens for great reasons? I want to great so I can write great blog posts that apply a loving dose of healing balm to the tender, irritated places of your heart. I want to be great so I can write great books that move you to do even greater things in the name of Christ. I want to write great sermons that inspire you to run straight into the open loving arms of Jesus. I want to be a great mom whose kids know that they are loved. I want to be a great mom who teaches her kids to care for others. I want to be a great mom who raises great kids who love Jesus. I want to be a great wife who is best friends with her hubby. I want to be a great homesteader who grows delectable meals and takes care of the environment. I want to be a great investor and do amazing things with the money I am allocated in this life. And I am so busy, so busy just trying to be great.

I want to be great.

And I work hard at so many things so that I can be great and so I can help you be great and so I can help my kids and my husband and my family and my homestead be great. And God knows how badly I want to be great and God knows how desperately I want to make a difference in this world and God knows how passionate I am to help others be nearer to Him even when they seem like they are kind of far away from Him. God knows I want to be great and that kind of sounds like great pride even if it is for great reasons.

But God has not called me to be great.

God has called me to Himself. And God says there is no point in being great, Amanda, if you aren’t close to Me. And God says, there is no point in writing great sermons if writing great sermons keeps you from spending precious time with Me. Stay close to Me and worry less about being great and doing great and looking great because greatness is emptiness in a prettied up package. And so I struggle with greatness because I want to be great and I know if I try so hard to be great I’ll be missing out on something and Someone even better than greatness. And so I struggle and strain to give up my idea of the great because that thing I want even more, that burning desire, is not for greatness itself but for the One who is greater than all. And my greatness is pride all prettied up and a knot in my stomach because I can’t even measure up and I ache to be great even though greatness is less than best.

I want to be great but what my heart needs greatest is Jesus.

And I’ll just let that simmer and work on my heart, on that tender irritated spot on my heart that needs the healing balm of Jesus to wipe away the pride and the need to be great and I’ll let Him speak in the quiet and work on that spot so that my need to be great is quenched by nothing less than His love.

His love is great, greater, and greatest. .