When you were a child, what did you dream about becoming when you grew up? A singer? An artist? A doctor? If not one of those, I’m sure you had quite a lengthy list. It always amazes me to see how a child can spit off several different answers to that question without any hesitation or fear. Yet, if I polled 10 random adults in a coffee shop with that same question, I’m pretty confident half would have a hard time answering that question, and a good percentage of the other half would share their dream with reservations because they doubt that their dream is even possible.
This saddens me because I believe that the art of dreaming has been absent in the lives of so many people, due to past failures, overwhelming lives, or negative experiences that have clouded their vision. Yet, I believe God often plants dreams in our hearts to give us a sneak preview of what he wants to do through us in the future. We see that in Genesis 37, when God revealed to Joseph, the dreamer, that his brothers and countless others would bow down to him as the leader of a nation. Leading a nation is no small dream. In fact, for some, the idea of a calling that big might be pretty scary. That’s why I believe many people have a hard time dreaming. The thought of accomplishing something bigger than what a person is capable of doing in and of themselves is petrifying, and the thought of failing at trying to accomplish that dream is even worse. As an alternative, many people would rather work at a pace that makes them feel comfortable.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but God is not interested in you being comfortable; nor is God’s ability to use you affected in any way by the mistakes or failures in your past. If you can recall, throughout the Bible, God used some very unlikely people to do his greatest works. Scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:27 “ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” When God chooses his vessels to do His work, He could care less about your resume, your IQ, or your fears. What God cares about is your heart, and your willingness to surrender to Him so he can fully use you. We have to learn to understand that all of our lives are interconnected in some way. Your ability to accomplish your dream (let me rephrase it, the dream that God put on your heart) will directly impact the lives of countless others. In other words, someone’s life is waiting to be changed by your ability to step out on faith and fight to reach your dream.
If you are currently at a place in your life where you are feeling empty and unfulfilled, consider that to be a sign from God that He is calling you to do more. God knows the talents and unique gifts that He put inside of us, and He gave us those gifts so we could use them to make a difference in this world and advance His kingdom agenda. Just like Jesus mentioned in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, God is not okay with you sitting on the talents that He gave you; nor is he interested in hearing your excuses as to why you couldn’t use them. He has work for you to do, and God often reveals what He is calling you to through visions and dreams that He gives you for the future. So, my first question for you is, what is the dream that God has put on your heart to pursue? My follow up question to that is, now what are you waiting for?
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