Dreaming Great Dreams
Last week I blogged about setting goals, and our sermon today was part of a series to begin 2016. The series is entitled "Good to Great," and has been outlining the ways in which our lives can move from good to great in this new year.
We began 2 weeks ago with the most important first step - our lives and our experience will go from good to great when we pray great prayers. Not fancy prayers or complicated prayers. Great prayers are authentic prayers, prayers from our heart...prayers that come to God with trust and confidence that He can and will answer.
Last Sunday we talked about our ability to choose a great attitude. We are to have the attitude of Jesus Himself, which Paul described in his letter to the Philippian church:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus; Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (held onto), but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Our attitude is always a choice. Always. Attitudes are never the result of the actions of other people or even our circumstances, even though we sometimes tell ourselves it is in order to avoid taking responsibility. And we learned that our attitude is predictive of our future. Thomas Jefferson said, "Nothing can stop the man with a good attitude, and nothing can help the man with a bad attitude."
Today, we talked about our dreams. To go from good to great in our lives, we must dream great dreams!
Even if you're not into reading the Bible, you are probably familiar with the story of Joseph from the Old Testament (or Hebrew Scripture.) Joseph was the son of Jacob (Israel) and Rachel, and was the youngest of their 12 sons. The scripture tells us that Joseph was Jacob's favorite, in part because he was the youngest, and born in Jacob's old age. Most of us understand the dynamic of a parent having a favorite child...and that favorites tend to be disliked by the other siblings. Such was the case with Joseph and his older brothers. In just a short telling of the story, the fact that Joseph's brothers hated him is repeated 3 separate times. Why did the brothers hate Joseph so much?
A big part of their hatred came out of Joseph having a dream that he would rule over his older brothers, which made them furious. They even went so far as to consider killing him, but instead sold him into slavery.
There are a few things I take from this part of Joseph's story, and then I want to share with you what Pastor Kalyn shared about dreams and how God uses dreams in our lives:
Dreams Create Friction
Sometimes we are discouraged from dreaming, and even more so, from sharing our dreams, because dreams can create friction. The bigger the dream, the more potential for friction. One way to think of this relates to movement - movement, as a matter of science, generates friction. Sitting still on the other hand...no friction.
If we have chosen to pursue big dreams while those around us choose to stay still, there will be a natural friction brought about between you. In the story of Joseph and his dream, he was a young man when he told his older brothers about his dream...being a young man, I wouldn't be surprised if he told his dream with a certain amount of brashness, perhaps even arrogance. Almost certainly then, you would expect friction.
What if we are dreamers, and the people closest to us are not dreamers? Or perhaps they had a dream once, and felt they had lost the dream and now fear to dream again? This too would create friction.
The point I'm making is this - when you have a big dream, expect friction. It is part of the making of the dream, much like friction is required to transform coal into diamonds.
God Has Dreams for You
Have you considered that God has dreams for you? He has great plans and desires for your life. We read in Psalm 139 one of the most amazing, powerful and comforting verses in all of scripture:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, and I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
As an aside that I cannot fail to mention, it is this very passage that gives so many of us a passion to protect unborn children from being killed in the womb of their mothers. Beyond that, it tells us how intimately God is involved in our lives from the very moment of our conception, and how intimately He cares about every detail of the lives we will live, once we are born.
To dream your greatest dreams, and to see them come to pass, you must first know and believe that God believes in you and has a destiny for you to fulfill during your lifetime.
God's Dream for Your Life Will Always be Connected to God's Dreams
Do you know that God has dreams too? Scripture gives us insight to the dreams of God:
In 2 Peter 3:9, God tells us that He desires for all men (and women and children) to come to salvation. This is God's first passion - to be in relationship with us and to grow His family. Our dreams should always be consistent with God's dreams, even though our individual roles in fulfilling His dreams will be unique and different.
In Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples God's dream for the church, which is to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This too is a dream of God - that we the church would fulfill His mission in the earth by making disciples to follow Jesus.
Finally, in Ephesians, we learn that God has a very specific dream for each of us individually:
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This passage affirms what God says through the Psalmist, that He had a plan for us before we were born. A life of good works He prepared us to carry out before we were born.
God is the Reclaimer of Unfulfilled Dreams
Did you know 22 years passed between the time Joseph had his great dreams, and when they finally came to pass?
For many of us, myself included...there were dreams in our hearts many years ago. Dreams that seem to have gone unfulfilled. Promises and hopes unrealized.
How do we stay on the path toward our dreams? How do we hold the hopes and the dreams in our hearts when circumstances would tell us to give up?
Know these truths:
1. Time passing does not diminish the validity of your dreams.
2. Detours on your journey do not diminish the validity of your dreams.
3. Set backs and failures do not diminish the validity of your dreams.
Staying the course, keeping your eyes and heart fixed on the dream requires faith, persistence, and trust. If your dreams are consistent with God's purposes and plans for you, He will bring them to pass in due time. He will even reclaim the lost dreams, the dreams given up for dead.
How Do Dreams Become Reality?
Whether in scripture or in business and development coaching, this one thing is consistent and true:
In order for your dreams to become reality, you must first
1. Write them down.
In a little known passage of Hebrew scripture, the prophet Habakkuk is wrestling with God in prayer. He is complaining to God about the violence and injustice of the world. He is calling on God to help, to intervene, to do something to penalize the evil ones in the society of that time.
At the end of his prayer, Habakkuk tells God he will stand watch, waiting for God's answer. He is going to station himself on the walls of the city, waiting. Waiting until God answers his complaint.
God does answer Habakkuk, and this is where the story gets amazing. When God begins to answer Habakkuk with the details of what is to come...what God is going to do in the future to right these wrongs. He begins by saying this:
Then the Lord replied: "WRITE DOWN THE REVELATION AND MAKE IT PLAIN ON TABLETS SO THAT A HERALD MAY RUN WITH IT. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end, and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay."
Step 1 is always: Write it Down! The writing down of the dream is core to your commitment to it. It is the first active step you take toward the fulfillment of the dream, and it is a tangible reminder to keep you focused on it.
2. Read the dream (or your list of dreams) regularly, daily. And pray over them.
If you saw the movie Apollo 13, you may recall late in the movie they had to perform a "manual burn" to ensure their capsule was on the correct course to re-enter the earth's atmosphere.
If the course setting had been off just a fractional amount either direction, they would either burn up on re-entry, or skip off the earth's atmosphere into orbit again. They had no computer to guide their course setting, so had to use their visual of the earth through the capsule's window.
Like the astronauts, even the smallest of distractions can throw us off course. We need prayer, regular and daily, to keep us focused on God and His dreams, and to ensure our heading and our dreams are in line with His desires for us.
3. Step out in faith and take action toward your dreams.
When God responds to Habakkuk, He promises him the vision will come to pass. Even though delays may happen, and almost certainly will, God says to keep moving forward.
In the same way, even though your dreams may linger and seem slow in coming, they will certainly come to pass in God's time.
Sometimes the toughest part of the process is taking that first step of faith - to step out and acknowledge your dreams.
Write them down. Share them with trusted confidantes, and in prayer with the Father. And then take action, knowing that God has a destiny for you. He has dreams for you and wants to reveal those dreams to you. To the prophet Jeremiah and to us, God says this:
Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.
Have you lost touch with your dreams, or perhaps need a refresher to reinvigorate the desires of your heart?
God invites you to call to Him - He has a vision for your life, and dreams to fulfill through you. Call to Him and He will gladly answer you and tell you the great and unsearchable dreams He holds in His heart for you.
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