Big
There are moments that define the trajectory of your life—not because of who you are, but because of the questions you dare to ask.
My story begins on a hill overlooking San Diego. It’s about learning to see God not through the lens of tradition or limitation, but through the boundless vision of His own heart.
The “Presidio” is perched on a hill overlooking San Diego. A large white cross stands there. It was in this place where Father Junipero Serra stood in 1769 and dedicated California to Jesus. He then founded the first 8 of what became 21 missions.
Just below the Presidio is a small park called “the Grotto” where we feed the homeless every Thursday night. This is part of a larger outreach, a place where people are fed and prayed for and where many are saved. It is a safe place. The food, music, teaching, and prayer are all exceptional. It’s where we connect with real people living on the other side of the cultural divide; people who are confused and broken by disparities they do not fully understand. Our outreach is to the marginalized and disenfranchised people in our troubled world.
One night, as I looked across at about 150 hungry people, I felt prompted to ask the Lord for three things:
1. “Teach me how to love like You do.”
2. “Teach me how to give like You give.”
3. “Teach me how big You are.”
These three questions mattered deeply to me, and I wasn’t afraid to ask. God is not afraid of big questions.
As He often does, He answered the first two questions quickly and He poured into my heart all the insight and instruction that I needed to understand His values and His ways.
But the third question— “How big are You?”—He did not answer right away. And that troubled me a lot! Something had changed,
Two weeks passed. I have grown accustomed to a relationship with my Heavenly Father where when I asked honest questions, I always received almost immediate answers. This time was different. Nothing poured forth. My Father who I know and trust was silent on the last and most important of these three questions.
I persisted: “How big are You?”
Finally, He responded with His question for me, asking “How big are your prayers?”
His response struck me with instant clarity. He showed me that I often reduce God’s greatness to the scale of my own limited imagination, my own needs, and my own lack of perspective.
Then He clearly said, “Pray bigger prayers.”
And here is my dilemma—how big is a prayer that honors my Heavenly Father?
Until then, I had confined my prayers to fairly limited things. How big should they be? Should I pray for myself, my family, my friends, my city, my state, my country—or for the world as a whole? Should I pray prayers that encompass our solar system, our galaxy, or even the entire universe with its countless galaxies and stars? How far does this go? How big is God, really?
I stopped being afraid of big prayers. Moreover, I stopped being afraid to explore the depths of who He is.
That moment transformed my prayer life. I realized that we, as human beings, limit God in our minds and hearts based on our own limited perspective. One of the clearest indicators of this is how we pray and what we pray for.
You don’t want me to pray for you. On my own, my prayers are weak or may not even align with the will of my Father. But God’s prayers are always sound.
Now, if you ask me to pray for you, my responsibility is to ask our Heavenly Father what He wants us to pray. It’s a hard response for some, but I think it’s the right one.
Eventually, people stopped asking me to pray for them. Why? Because when you ask God what He wants to say on someone’s behalf, He often shifts the conversation in a direction you don’t expect. For example, you may want me to pray for you about resources, but your Heavenly Father wants us to first deal with your relationship with your spouse. Full transparency before the Living God can be frightening.
When you stand before your Heavenly Father, you cannot conceal your dirty laundry. All is exposed, not just to Him, but sometimes to those around you. That kind of transparency can be disorienting. We hide our hidden sins and conceal our personal agendas under a veneer of polite respectability. We comfort ourselves by retreating into the seclusion of our secret lives rather than reveal them openly.
To pray rightly, we ask God what He wants us to pray. Then we wait to hear His voice. And when we do, we receive a “download” from His heart, which may be quite different from what we came for.
It’s disturbing to have your dirty laundry aired in public. Yet you will find no truer friend than one who will stand between you and God and intercede for you, even in your brokenness.
God is not embarrassed and neither should you be. He knows who you are, what you are doing, and what’s in your heart. Nothing is hidden from Him. Nothing.
If you’re willing to go deep with the Lord, then yes, I would be delighted to pray with you. Afterwards, I’ll probably forget the whole thing. God keeps His own counsel, and wipes clean that which He wants kept private. Your secrets are safe with Him (and me.)
Moreover, you can rely on Him to answer the prayers that He authored. As for our own prayers, often times the answer is “No.”
We read in the Old Testament about the prophet, Jonah. He tried to evade God’s command to go to Nineve to preach. It did not go well. A certain whale was involved. His efforts at escape and evasion were brought to an abrupt end when God forcibly intervened. Jonah was more focused on what he wanted than what God wanted.
Our Father seeks out the man or woman who will do His will without hesitation or evasion. Jonah learned the hard way. You don’t have to. Hiding from God is not a wise policy.
If you find yourself drawn into a deep, intimate relationship with your Heavenly Father, you are incredibly blessed. But you will also be tested, stretched to your limit, so that your trust in Him will grow deeper and stronger. And here’s the astonishing part: as your trust in Him grows, His trust in you also grows in like measure. The biblical Principle of Reciprocity applies here.
It’s one thing to trust and depend on your Heavenly Father. It’s something else entirely for your Heavenly Father to trust and depend on you.
So, how big is God?
That moment in the Grotto was a deep learning opportunity for me. It’s been years since, but I carry it with me. Sure, it’s easy to say, “He’s infinite; He has no limits.” That’s fine—but it’s not satisfying. Knowing something intellectually is one thing but knowing it experientially is a different matter.
Hearing about God is one thing. Meeting Him in person is another.
In Jesus’ day, a lot of people heard about Jesus, but they did not enter into a personal relationship with Him. They may have wanted to, but there were other priorities and distractions in their lives they had to deal with first. To them, Jesus was not yet a personal reality for them.
This difference is not lost in the Gospels—especially in the Gospel of John. Much of John is a struggle between who we think God is and who He really is. In Koine Greek, different words are used to describe “knowing about” someone intellectually versus knowing them (experiencing them) personally. In English, we use one word— “know”—for both, even though they express two very different realities.
God’s greatness isn’t measured in galaxies or miracles—it’s measured in His trust in you and your trust in Him. The question isn’t “How big is God?” but “How much of His vastness are you willing to accept and receive?” The answer isn’t found in data or formulas; it’s found in an intimate relationship. When you choose to walk with Him, nothing—absolutely nothing—stays small.
Pray bigger prayers. It’s good for you. It will change your life.
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