At a late-night Bible study on a college campus, a student asked me an auspicious, yet overwhelming question.

"Can we talk?"

I hesitated, thinking how desperately I wanted a shower and my pillow after a long, arduous day. I agreed, and we walked to the commons.

While he purchased food, I waited at a table. I checked the clock. 11:15 p.m.

Finally he returned and said, "Hey, do you remember those guys on my floor I was telling you about yesterday? Well, I just ran into them and they want to talk to you about God."

Thinking he meant they would join us at the table, I agreed to talk.

"They're meeting us at the dorm," he said.

I glanced at my watch. 11:30 p.m.

God, I am exhausted! I prayed. I just want to go home!

A passage I'd memorized—Colossians 1:28, 29—interrupted my thoughts: "We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me" (New International Version).

God, I have no energy for this, I prayed. But I'll show up as long as You do the rest.

Walking back to the dorm, my fatigue seemed to disappear, and I mentally prepared to talk to probably two or three college freshmen.

I was shocked to find 16 waiting in the lounge.

Bracing myself for a barrage of antagonistic questions, the first inquiry was posed with a surprisingly honest and sincere tone.

"What's the big deal about Jesus?" a student asked. The questions continued—all of them genuine, all seeking truth.

Others from the floor joined us, and a total of 24 guys inquired about Jesus, Christianity and the Bible until 3 a.m.

That night turned into a weekly event for two semesters, and I was adopted as floor mentor for the year.

Looking back, I realize that if I had trusted in myself, I would have succumbed to my exhaustion, gone home and missed a life-changing opportunity.

Instead, I handed over to God an overwhelming situation, and He in turn used it to transform the lives of 24 students. And one Bible-study leader.

Fishing into the cabinet under the sink, I pulled out a bag of cotton balls and laughed when I noticed the writing: Jumbo Cotton Balls. Even cotton balls haven't escaped the size-inflation craze of America. We live in the land of Big Gulps, stretch Hummers and Jumbo Cotton Balls.

We are addicted to bigger. I'm addicted to bigger.

And yet there's one area of my life where bigger makes me nervous: God.

God is big on a level I can't comprehend. There's no smaller version. He's one size: jumbo.

He fed 5,000. He calmed the raging storm. He created the universe.

He works on a scale and magnitude I simply don't have a category for. His size confuses me and challenges me to figure Him out.

As a result, many times it seems easier to simply avoid the reality. But I'm learning that I can't be satisfied by anything or anyone smaller than Him.

What do I do with a God who is so big that He took the sin of the world on Himself on the cross?

I stand in awe and thankfulness. He's big. I'm small.

I remember the scene like it happened two months ago, not two decades ago: I was about 7 years old, and riding my red, white and blue bicycle around on our street. Other neighborhood children were playing too. I separated from them and pulled over, rested my right food on the curb, gazed at our locust tree and thought these exact words: I am thirsty, but not for water, juice or Kool-Aid. It's a different kind of thirst. I knew my young heart craved something much deeper, but I didn't know what, or how to find out what (or Whom). And since I couldn't figure it out in that moment, I tried to ignore it and began to pedal again.

After I became intimately acquainted with the Savior of my soul, I discovered this verse: "Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink'" (John 7:37b, English Standard Version). It was as if He had written it just for me.

Long before He drew me into a personal relationship with Himself, Jesus was writing His name on my heart, molding me to long for Him. He pursues every single one of us in unique ways to know Him personally. The Bible explains, "For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in things that have been made. So they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20, ESV).

And now that I do know Him personally, He still seeks me out, making me thirst for even more of Him.