The BIG Picture

A basketball zipped past my head and Tim Duncan himself came over to retrieve it. My husband laughed as I was rendered speechless for once. He had gotten us wonderful seats to a Spurs game, so close to the players’ bench that I could have reached out and touched one if the security guard had been willing.

The game went on and I excitedly posted pictures of it to Facebook, happily reading the comments while the game whizzed around us. Suddenly, though, a slew of notifications from Facebook lit up my phone screen. They were pictures friends had taken of my husband and me on THEIR television screens, with Tony Parker and Tim Duncan right by my head.

I was on the huge screens in the stadium, on the televised version of the game in millions of people’s homes and I did not even see it. The pictures people were sending us were of two greats of the NBA making a spectacular play with my head in the middle, only I was looking down, at my phone. I was not even paying attention to the game because I was completely focused on the little picture in my hands instead of the bigger picture that went around the world.

In leadership, how many times has it happened that we become so drawn in to the little picture that we lose sight of the bigger things going on? Our natural thinking is small, while God’s thinking and plans encompass eternity. As a leader, it is key that you see God’s thinking about yourself and then others. You cannot see the bigger picture about anyone else until you realize the bigger picture about yourself.

Graham Cooke says, God has pictures of you that are just way different, way bigger. What… is important is when we live in our spirit man we start to rise up in God’s perception of us. That is why God gives us prophecies, why He gives us scripture, because He is defining who we are. And you are always defined by who you are in Jesus. He will never define you according to your old nature because it is dead. He is redefining you according to your new nature so get over your bad self and come into your good self so we can all have some fun.

Get your eyes off the small picture. Enlarge and reframe your thinking, and bring it into alignment with what God says. Delight in His plans. Worship Him for the goodness that He is lavishing on you today and in your future. Revel in coming into agreement with what He believes about you.

Romans 8:5-8 Those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mindset on the flesh is hostile towards God for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Practical Application

You have heard both Jane Hansen Hoyt and Graham Cooke say, Identity is the key to transformation. All of us in Aglow have been on a journey since 2004 to find out how we are known in Heaven. Once you know who you are from Heaven’s point of view, then you know how you are supposed to live within yourself and towards other people.

Graham Cooke said, God always works from the whole to the particular. If you are going to accept your identity, you have to accept the whole identity. Abraham had to accept that “I am going to be the father of many nations” even when he had no children. You have to accept the whole of who you are to be a GameChanger. You have to study your words. You have to start seeing yourself the way God sees you. Write it out. You have to do it as a matter of absolute urgency.

Several things combined will help you to begin to see yourself as God sees you. Let’s get started with discovering the real you! You may need another sheet of paper for your answers.