Okay this positioning thing is going through my mind quite a bit. On the tail of the last blog post - positioning yourself somewhere positive….I think that we need to position ourselves small.

If you are anything like me, you want your words to be heard by many. You see others that you aspire to be like….who are in fronts of hundreds, maybe even thousands and people listening to the words that God gives them. You look at them and think, wow….if I could be there.

We try to position ourselves in the right places….to network, meet the right people, say the right things to get where we think we need to go. We are trying to position ourselves big.

Back in my younger days, my insight wasn’t always so clear. I remember getting to go away to a big Bible college where I got the opportunity to play piano for the choir…and go on to play at a few big conferences which had around 10,000 people. I thought I had arrived….I had positioned myself BIG. I came home to my local home church and marched right up to my pastor’s wife and blurted out, “Hey guess what I got to do…” and proceeded to announce all the BIG things I had landed. I sure sounded like a fool.

She said, “Oh wow, well I get to stay here and play” basically meaning that where she was, was just fine with her and that was her place.

I felt SO stupid. Those words echo in my ear to this day. Where we might think is small, could be right where God wants us. It doesn’t matter how MANY are influenced by us or what God does through us, it’s WHO and at WHAT time.

Another example more recent is a dear friend of mine who led an exercising small group (yes you heard right) here at our church. The exercise group turned into way more than ladies exercising together, but times of bonding, crying, spilling their guts, etc. She said sometimes there would be a lot, and sometimes there would be one. But she didn’t focus on the 1-person days as a flop…and she wasn’t getting the numbers she wanted, but that God meant on that particular day, that one person was the RIGHT person to be there at that time.

Start positioning yourself small. This blog might only get read by two people. But if God should let it, it will be the right two people…who then can influence ten, then a hundred, then a thousand.

God calls some to what appears to be greatness in our eyes, and God calls some to what may appear to be smallness in our eyes. The thing is, we are NOT God….so what looks small to us is very God-sized and large in God’s mind.

So position yourself small…and who knows….”Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Matthew 25:23 KJV

I just had a huge “pump-you-up” weekend. I mean Arnold Schwarzenegger pump you up…..I am still flying high. We just had Jeremy Foster come in and give our leaders some inspiration to motivate us to do something great.

That same weekend, I had someone say, “I didn’t realize how dry I had become until this weekend. It’s kind of like the frog that gets boiled because he doesn’t know how hot the water is becoming…it happened so gradually.”

I myself had realized how excited I was about my ministry now that I had positioned myself in the place of learning from someone so enthusiastic and encouraging me to become better. What had happened? How had I become so cold? I believe it’s all in the positioning.

We try our best to be positive, but no man is an island. If we don’t put ourselves around others who will uplift us, then the negative ones will surely drain us dry. Jeremy even told us that we needed to surround ourselves with the right people.

Our human nature wants to be lazy. It wants to be around people who are complaining, because we want to complain. It’s easier to be around the loathers….because there are so many of them.

The complainers want to approach us giddy, happy, positive people…because maybe they think we’ll give them what they want…or we can be an earth mover and shaker. But it drains us dry. And the crazy part is it happens so gradually, we never even know it.

Clear your life out for a week or so. Get into God’s word, pump yourself up….position yourself around positive people. Then when the negative comes, it becomes so clear. That same weekend, someone was like “blah blah blah, complain complain complain….” and I was like (in my mind) ARE YOU SERIOUS?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It was such a shock to hear it - because I had been positioned so positive for the entire weekend, the negative was such a shock to my system.

Don’t become like the frog and let negativity become your demise.

Position yourself positive.