Last week, I went out to my BBQ and opened the lid to find a rat, not a mouse, staring up at me. He was a large fully alive rat with a long tail. We were both shocked! For the next 10 seconds I tried my best to end his life with my grill brush but off he scurried. To the nearest hardware store I went to arm myself for conflict.  I returned home with a handful of mousetraps to set around the yard in likely rat locations. I went to sleep that night knowing I had done my manly best to protect our home from an invasion of unwanted vermin. That day, each time I walked by our rat-adverse cat I shot him a look of disgust to remind him of his failure as a man-cat.

The next morning, I checked my traps at the first light of dawn. We hunters keep early morning hours. All the traps still had their cheesy bait in place except one that was placed under the deck. The trap had been sprung and was nowhere in sight hidden in the dark and creepy cavern beneath the deck. Something large had come to visit the trap and taken it away. 

It was obvious my itty-bitty mousetraps did not have the power to do in the Jurassic Park sized rat that was prowling the family compound. Back to the hardware store I went. This time I got some really big and scary rat traps that would take a CrossFit junkie to set their large and powerful springs. I armed the trap with a rat delicacy and thankfully still had all my fingers intact after the ordeal. I attached some 10- pound monofilament fishing line to the trap and secured the line to a cement planter. This sucker would not escape this time.

Two days went by with no rat in my traps, until one morning last week when I pulled a trap from beneath the deck. There he was a really large rat with a rearranged cranium. He was a goner. Of course, I had to take a picture and text the image of his furry corpse to my wife and daughter. When I dumped the rat carcass into the garbage you guessed it, the Lord spoke to me.

He said, “My people need to set larger traps”. I thought I was imagining this word realizing I was still going through rat trauma, but it definitely was a word from the Lord. He wasn’t talking to me about rats. This was different. Like me, some of you have set small traps of expectation limiting the size of what God can deliver to you. Your faith slowly got small over time, not small in potential like a mustard seed of belief, but small in your expectation of God’s goodness and provision. 

You need to get a larger trap because what God has planned for you won’t be captured in a mouse trap-sized faith. Those who set larger traps will reap a larger reward. God is large beyond our wildest imagination and so is His blessing. He is inviting you to believe in the immensity of His love so you can extravagantly reflect His love and provision to the world around you. Get a bigger trap of faith!