I have been dwelling, for a few weeks now, on what I believe is a great idea, even a God idea. I have been praying about the ‘hows’ and the ‘whys’ and the ‘whens’ of this coming into being. I am leaving a lot of those things with God.

Jon and I are privileged to know some incredibly creative people. At this current moment, we have good friends involved in some amazing projects across the world… charities, events, books, films, art projects, TV programmes, CD’s, careers…you name it really. Its a bit of a mind-bender reading our emails some days!

So what is it that makes a good idea different from a great one? What are the factors that breathe Godly life into something, and not others?
I was fascinated to read an article today on the BBC homepage about just this: the invention of ideas.

Did you know, for example that the internet was not commercially useful to most ordinary consumers for 30 years? It was, in a sense a 30-year-hunch. It was providing other services in that time but in terms of the ordinary household and the payoff for investment, it took bloomin’ ages to ‘come good.’

A phrase coined by the scientist Stuart Kaufman is the concept of something called ‘adjacent possible.’ Now, I know that God works outside the possible..(!! ) but I still find an interesting theory. In essence it means that any invention is dependent on the right circumstances – as in a chess game, where there are a finite set of moves available at any given time. For instance, however much you wanted to, you couldn’t have invented a microwave oven in 1659, it’s just beyond the bounds of possibility. And why would you have wanted one?! There are too many intermediate steps on the way to inventing and NEEDING something that complex.

Ooh… thats interesting!

So what does your world need? What is God asking you to dream up and with who? The trick is perhaps to find the points of possibility in your own particular place and own particular space. And not jump too far ahead!

I find this challenging. Sometimes I don’t think in small, modular steps. I often think BIG picture first.

I guess, for me, most of all its about two things:
1. God’s revelation
2. God’s timing

Even if you have the mother and father of wonderful plans, if those two things aren’t right, its dead in the water…