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Make No Small Plans Here!
I was on the website of the Oral Roberts University some time ago and their slogan read – Make no Small plans here…
Let me let you in on what stood out for me.
Small plans…this translates to- me, myself and I kinda dream. A dream just enough to make me comfortable.
Usually people say that don’t bite off more than you can chew, but I beg to differ bite bigger than you can chew and let God help you chew the rest.
No small plans here friend!
No more tiny visions, just enough for you and your constituency. No more!
Let me share this with you.
Early this year, I read of a story of a woman called Dr Tererai Trent. Her story inspired me greatly (her story inspired Oprah too…smiles)
Tererai was born in 1965 in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in a time when the girl child was not allowed to get an education. She desired to be educated and will read her brother’s books and do his assignment. His teacher found out and was elated and told her father to let her come to school because she had a voracious appetite for learning. Her father on hearing all the teacher said, instead of accenting to the teacher’s request, went ahead to marry Tererai off and at 18 years she had had 3 children already. Yet she believed that someday her dream of getting educated will come to pass. In 1991, a woman from heifer international visited her village and asked all the women there their greatest dream. Tererai did not let her present reality mystify her childhood dream of an education, so she wrote these dreams down:
- I want to go to America
- I want to have a Bachelor’s Degree
- I want to have a Master’s Degree
- I want to have a PhD
- I want to come back and build schools here in my home country
These were the dreams of a disadvantaged, uneducated, girl, married off early and with 5 children at the point of writing the dreams. Yet she dared to Dream, and oh did she dream.
Let me fast forward the story
- In 1998Tererai moved to Oklahoma with her husband and 5 children
- In 2001she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Agricultural Education
- In 2003 earned her Master’s Degree. Her husband was deported because he always abused her, she later met Dr Trent.
- In 2009, Tererai earned a Doctorate degree.
- In 2011Oprah got wind of her and featured her on her show as her All-time favorite guest. Oprah donated $1.5 million to Tereai’s dream of rebuilding schools in her village in Zimbabwe.
- In 2013, Dr. Tererai Trent had the honor to open up the plenary session of the UN Global leaders’ Summit in New York.
Her watch word all through, which I have adopted as mine, was Tinogona! Which means “it is Achievable”
So here is me asking you what kind of dreams and plans do you have?
Dare to dream…
Make big plans. It is Achievable!
The lyrics of a song- “Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson drives the message home
“I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly
I’ll do what it takes ’til I touch the sky
And I’ll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway
Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won’t forget all the ones that I love
I’ll take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway”
Do not play life safe. Do something today that scares you.
Can you imagine in Matthew 14:28 Peter when he told Jesus, if it is you, bid me come. Peter and Jesus are the only 2 people in history that have ever walked on water.
Can you picture Abraham saying to his family, I am leaving because God wants me on this journey…imagine if he did not dare, we will never have heard of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
What of Moses? Born after the similitude of the palace, a general in the Egyptian Army. Yet he believed in a dream that was bigger than himself. Chances are that if he did not follow that dream in his heart, all we would have known of Moses would have just been that he was a general in the Egyptian army.
DREAM friend!
…make NO SMALL PLANS HERE!
The desired future will not just fall on us, we need to get up and be about getting there. It is not magic. Get up!
So spread your wings today and fly! Fly so high!
Live inspired…
Cheers!
-His Handmaiden.
Thanks Renie.i’m blessed.
Thank God. Thank you
Thanks Rhenie!
I am fired up. Thanks Rhenie. I will read it again. No small plans here!!!
Thus is very apt. Profound!!! God bless your heart dear
Amen
This is awesome and well written …. I am not going to limit the extent of Gods wonders in my life (Take the limits off)….Big dreams
Hello Morenike, nice piece. I’ve been inspired. More ink to the pen. Keep it up.
Many thanks, again, Oluwa-Tomisin. Very, very inspiring indeed.
Thank you sir. Thank God.
One thing is sure about life, when you have it in your heart, God will put it in your hand. Many dreams die pre-maturely partly because God has searched the “dreamer”, and has discovered the greed, and self-centeredness smartly wrapped/hidden from the supposed beneficiaries. You can imagine the little David, who was so passionate, caring and humane; without any formal skill of defence tactics, he nurtured and kept the sheep of his father. Unknown to many, God was preparing him for a bigger task in future – which is PEOPLE MANAGEMENT! Having been so faithful as a shepherd (of less human creatures), God was so convinced to put him in charge of His chosen, the ISRAELITES! Such was also the case of Tererai, and that’s why God had prepared helpers of her destiny, who were only waiting for her “show face” and facilitate the emergence of another rescuer of destinies. Know it from today, we all have destinies waiting and crying for rescue, which would only come when we MANIFEST. So, we must all wake up!
Truly inspiring and reward for meeting of focus, determination, persistence and luck. I salute Tinogona!
Anything is possible, thanks Reni…
Very well said Faith. “If you can Dream it, you can Do it”
Make no small plans here! Very inspiring read, just what I need to hear now…
Thanks Reni
Reni.
This is the best thing I have read in a long long time.
Thank you,THANK YOU!!!
Please don’t you ever stop writing
Thank God. thanks alot dearie. by God’s grace i would not
Even if I have been thinking bellow what I aim to be, through this story I have to make an adjustment to my level of thought, In all thanks for this life message.
Thank God.He will make things clear for you.
oops! Interesting and charging write up…..Thank you…..
Really lovely and very inspiring Renny.