(Pastor James Scarborough, Donalsonville Assembly of God)

I had one of my little helpers with me as I took down the outside Christmas decorations at church. As we got ready to get to work, Jaleah went inside the church office with me for a few minutes. Suddenly I noticed that she had something in her hand as she said something about peeling these off. To my surprise, I looked and found her with a book of postage stamps that she had quickly retrieved from the desk drawer without me knowing it.

Thankfully, I was able to stop her before she had some nice stickers at the hefty cost of 44 cents apiece!

Jaleah’s curiosity almost got her in trouble with Papa, but I am still grateful that she has a mind that is sharp enough to make her want to check into things. We will guide her and correct her where needed, but we do not want to crush her drive to investigate things in a way that broadens her knowledge.

In a short article written by Kent Ingle, several characteristics are given regarding what he believes are essential to an effective church leader. Among those he includes curiosity. He believes that “Curiosity is where dreams are born.” He says further that “curiosity is a mark of one making an impact for God‘s Kingdom.” And Ingle writes, “Curiosity seeks an answer to the question ‘What if?’ What if you were bold in asking God to do something great through you?”

From time to time, Gale and I talk about some of the “What if?” things of life, particularly as it relates to what took place years ago as we made the first necessary steps toward entering into pastoral ministry. We wonder what if we had never moved away from our hometown and what if I had not entered into Bible college with a wife and two little girls.

To that let me quickly add that we have no regrets about those decisions and we have seen God lead us and provide for us in ways that we could not have known otherwise. But “What if?” questions concerning the past are not what should be of greatest importance to us. Of greater importance, we should be asking ourselves about the present and future. What if we dare to trust God like never before? What if we surrender to His call for us to serve Him to a greater extent than we have in the past?

If we allow fear to prevent us from trusting Him to take us outside our comfort zone and use us in new ways, we will deny ourselves, and perhaps those that God wants us to impact, from experiencing all that He has in store for us.

I believe Kent Ingle is right: “Curiosity is where dreams are born.” As God’s people we must refuse to be satisfied with staying as we are; we must allow Godly curiosity to cause us to ask some “What if?” questions about what we can do for God and then trust Him to enable us to see such dreams become reality.

It should be our desire to answer the Lord as the prophet Isaiah did: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”” (Isaiah 6:8, NIV).

What if God calls you? Let Him breathe a dream of Godly service into your heart.