Stretching our Minds

I went on a 6 mile jog today and it felt like a stroll. Would i have ever thought that would've been me 5 years ago... no way. If you would've asked me if it was possible for me to run a marathon during my last year of high school i would've laughed at you. But then in college i ran 5 miles. After that a half-marathon and the next thing i knew i thought in my training, why not run a marathon? So i trained and i did! What i never thought i was capable of i started to realize i was.
Sometimes i think we hold ourselves back because we don't know what we or God are capable of doing.

I often have wondered how businessman can make decisions involving billions of dollars when i am having trouble deciding whether to spend the extra $2.50 for the fries and drink that come with the value meal! I say God can do ANYTHING with his resources, but experience tells me that it is a lot harder than anticipated to believe that i really can change my character flaws that have developed over 23 years or that God really can and will provide my missions salary for the next two years. Would i have gone to New Zealand initially if i knew it would involve 3 years of my life? No. But He got me there because he needed to stretch my mind to see what He and I were capable of. Now he is stretching my mind again to dedicate two more years of my life there. Has God been stretching your mind? Are you seeing how much more you and He are capable doing?
I wouldn't expect to just go and run a marathon in one day. It took stretching steps and reason and preparation to get to that place. A businessman doesn't just get a billion dollars to play with for no reason. We need to start believing, dreaming, and stretching forward. Because of repeated failures to compensate for my weaknesses it is hard for me to believe God cannot only change help me overcome weakness, but that He is capable of changing a WHOLE person's make up and life through repentance! But he does it! Or to believe God wants to bring thousands of people in your life instead of the ten in your small group is a big step. To trust God will provide thousands of dollars instead of $10 takes a lot more understanding of what God is capable of, a lot more responsibility, and a lot more work, but you begin to understand just how big, in control, and capable God really is. God isn't all about numbers, but He really can and does blow them out of the water. Are we stretching our minds so that not only God can use us to do big things that WE are capable of through Christ, but also to have faith of how BIg and capable our God really is!

Examples:
-One guy has a shovel, the other a bulldozer. Depending on how each one uses there talent the guy with the shovel may dig way more than the bulldozer ever does. Dream.
-Missionaries trust God for ample supplies of money!
-People receiving limitless amounts of money out of faith to provide for other's needs!
-God taking you out of an occupation maybe presenting a better or more fitting situation


(I wish i posted more scripture on these excerpts but i just don't have a bible near)