Do Not Fear Small Beginnings
Has God ever asked you to step out in faith and do something you feared? Perhaps it was to write a book, start a business, go to school, quit your job, start a ministry, or start a YouTube Channel. I have realized that a lot of the time when God calls us to do something, we allow fear to get in the way and we must make a choice whether we give into the fear or not. Personally, a big fear of mine was that I knew one of the ventures God called me to do was going to be a long process before I can see the fruit of it with my own ideas. Moments like these are moments where we can access our faith and prove it through our actions. It is where we give God permission to move in such a way that there is no other answer other than, “This was God’s doing.”
I was at a conference one day where I felt like I heard the Lord ask me to start a YouTube channel; it was completely out of the blue for me, so I questioned if it was me or God, but I trusted that it was God because it wouldn’t make sense for me to get this sudden urge. A couple hours later, one of the speakers at the conference gave me a prophetic word and said, “I hear the Lord saying that you are an influencer, and He is going to give you a platform to touch many.” I thought his use of the word “influencer” was quite interesting, as that is what YouTubers in today’s age are normally described as and called. The same night I received another prophetic word from a random lady at the conference and she said, “God wants you to start your YouTube channel today, not tomorrow, not a couple weeks from now, He wants you to start it now and He says that you are an influencer.” Now I was certain this was God after He gave me two confirmations of what I knew I already heard.
One thought that came to my mind was that I would be starting with zero subscribers; this brought my thoughts to reality that this might not be a glamorous process. As I wondered what I would film, why God wanted me to do this, and how I would learn how to film, God told me not to fear small beginnings. Then once again, He confirmed it through various prophetic words that it is okay to start small and that I cannot fear the small beginnings.
Sometimes God needs to take us through a process to see if He can trust us with the little. If He can’t trust me with the small and see that I am faithful even when it’s challenging, then He wouldn’t just give me fifty-thousand subscribers after my first video. Is He capable of doing that? Absolutely. But for my story, He already warned me that I would experience small success before He blesses me with the bigger, more gratifying success. As of now, I have only gone from zero subscribers to forty subscribers after releasing three videos. While this could seem like a small feat, I constantly set my mind on my heart behind doing what I am doing.
The Word tells us to “Seek the kingdom first and all else will be added.” As mentioned prior, we must steward the small things that God gives us well, before He can trust us with the much. Consequently, the Word also says that “To whom much is given, much is required.” Sometimes God will move slowly because He knows what we can and cannot handle, and He will start small, because He has to see that we did well with the little that He gave. If God blessed you with $100,000 and you got yourself in debt and quickly threw it away on meaningless possessions, then He may have to teach you some lessons before He can trust you with $400,000. If you are seeking your personal gain, rather than the gain of God’s kingdom, then I recommend taking a step back to evaluate your heart and set your eye’s back on Jesus. When we do this, God will give us everything else we desire and need.
The reason I say all this is because small beginnings can be challenging. It can be easy to give up and could be easy to feel like what you are doing is not going anywhere. It can be easy to feel frustrated and think that you heard wrong; you may say to yourself, “God is not giving me favor in this area, so maybe I should move onto something else.” We must ask ourselves, “What am I doing all this for?” You see, if my heart was in the wrong place, I would have given up on YouTube already because I’m only getting a couple hundred views and maybe twenty likes and have forty subscribers. The reason I will not give up, is because I desire to be obedient to the Lord. I desire to trust His word that I must not be fearful of the small beginnings that He has for me. My focus needs to be the kingdom; I may not see crazy instant results, but results don’t matter. What matters is that one video could have changed a life and I don’t even know it. What matters is that I am being obedient to the Lord’s word. What matters is that I am stewarding what God has entrusted me with well and I am putting faith into action. What matters is that He can see that He can trust me with the little He has given me, and I know that will result in Him entrusting me with even more. What matters is that my focus is not personal gain, but rather building His kingdom and He will handle the rest for me.
We cannot allow fear of small beginnings keep us from being obedient to what God asks of us. I encourage you to step into faith, to realize that fear does not come from God it comes from the enemy, and to trust that God knows what He is doing and why He is doing it. He has His own process. If you keep your eyes, heart, and mind on the kingdom, He will add everything else and He will take your small beginnings to the next level, in His timing. He has everything in His hands and He will honor your obedience to the small beginning. Go start that business. Start that blog. Quit that job that is producing no fruit if God calls you to it. Go get that degree. We have been given freedom from fear when Jesus died on the cross for us.
