Stop for a moment. Be still. Let your imagination carry you to places you haven't dared to go for some time or maybe ever.

What's going on within you as you think about this question? Please read it again. You may already give yourself freedom to dream big. Perhaps you're thinking that this question is vain - only stirring hope that will soon be shattered or discarded. Maybe you think it's an empty motivational exercise that only hopeless "wannabes" consider.

Or, maybe you're like one of the leaders I recently addressed with this question during a seminar. It yanked him up from his bootstraps - it revealed his shallow, self-defeating beliefs - it shook him until he woke up and started actively dreaming and aggressively planning his future.

Jesus was so dramatic with his statements. Like C.S. Lewis alluded, He was either a lunatic or He was indeed the Son of God who ONLY spoke the freedom-producing truth. To me, one of His most dramatic statements is found in Mark 9:23. I've been meditating on this scripture for 2 years.

". . . ALL things are possible to him that believes."

Could this be true? If so, how would we answer the opening question?

The first part of believing is seeing - not on the outside but on the inside. What we focus on and are deeply committed to will begin to show up in our lives in some way.

It's interesting that Jesus mentions prayer and fasting a few verses later. How are they connected with ALL things being possible? This is the beauty and power of prayer. As we interact with our Heavenly Father, we begin to adapt His thinking, His perspective, His way of approaching issues. In prayer, He births and inspires pictures, visions, dreams within our heart. He directs what we "see" and therefore what we believe. Jesus said, ". . . I can do only what I see my Father doing."

As we continue in focused prayer, we enter His realm where ALL things are possible. That's the realm He is inviting us to enter NOW - so we can answer the opening question with boldness, "bigness" and clarity.

Let's allow our prayer time to expand what we see . . . that ALL things are possible with Him at the driver's wheel.

Copyright 2003 RLI and Tim Redmond