How often do you make a bigger deal out of your mistakes than needed? Nearly every day brings opportunity to beat ourselves up over something. When we have those moments, our emotions can run off on us. Unchecked they can lead us off the rails into major discouragement. Generally speaking, we see these failures as harming to our present and future. They can make us feel alone and hopeless. ‘Big deals’ are just that – a big deal. Of course, big deals work the other way as well. Success, a major event, or special grace can be an enormous ‘big deal.’ These become huge boosts to our confidence.
Sometimes we tend to muddy the water surrounding the events of our lives. When we see our life as being totally up to us, the pressure can blur our vision. Many can see every misstep as fatalistic. Faith and fear work much the same way. They connect us to what we believe. Fear is always the product of over emphasizing something and making it a bigger deal than it really is. Faith works the opposite. It connects us to Jesus, who is a much bigger deal than anything you could do or have done.
The Bible tells us that ‘where sin abounds, grace does much more abound.’ Ephesians 2 says, “4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Grace is a ‘bigger deal than sin.’ What Jesus did on the cross is a bigger deal than your failures. In the moment of sin, shortcoming, and failure, it will benefit us to remember this and have faith. Jesus is a bigger deal in my life than what I just did or didn’t do. Romans 8 tells us “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Have faith in God and connect to the “Big Deal” in your life. Don’t let what you do steal your joy in what Jesus has done for you. The big deal that trumps all other deals is this: He will never leave you nor forsake you. Like many in the Bible, you can be ‘a success, because the Lord is with you.’ That’s a big deal!
IN business and life there are short term and long term goals. Generally, short term goals are only effective in the light of the long term goal that they work to serve. It’s the long term goal that gives the momentum and energy to the short term goal. The long term goal reminds us of why we are doing what we do today and why the short term goals matter. Without the long term goal, the short term ones can lose there relevance. We forget why we are doing certain things and why it matters. Without the short term goals, the long term ones can seem too abstract and distant to be real. We need glimpses of the long term goal along the way. We need achievements that show we are not chasing unrealistic fairy tales. We need actions, habits, or ways of thinking that keep us on course and remind us of what’s most important and where we are heading. For the record, a goal can be a place we end up, an achievement, or even the person/organization we become. It could also be the combination of all three.