Will your dreams come true?
At thirteen I had dreams, brave ones, dreams I believed would leave the world altered.
I wrote them out, I designed mood boards, I scribbled drawings and then one day a stranger came to our church and asked me, in front of everyone, what dream God had put in my heart and I panicked.
Should I speak my dream out loud?
Should I risk sounding silly?
Shaking, I opened my mouth and shared how in my mind’s eye I saw a warehouse where young people gathered and learned about how Jesus liked them. I spoke of big Christian concerts and magazines and television and radio stations I would run. I dreamt out loud.
And then nothing happened.
I tried other things: jewelry design, paramedics, bookkeeping and waitressing. My teenage dreams were forgotten and abandoned by trying to pay for my studies and earn enough to eat something other than rice and instant noodles.
I found myself in an interview for a job in television. I had no background in it but they invited me to talk and see if I suited the job.
The show they wanted me to produce was a music show for Christian teens. Without encouragement the director revealed pictures of the set: a warehouse.
Wonder bubbled up in me as I looked at the 3D renders of the set and was taken on a tour of the studios. Less then an hour later I had a job offer in my hands.
On the drive home from the interview, I kept saying thanks to God and laughing. In my mind I saw a younger me standing in front of strangers, knees shaking, sharing a dream that looked like the TV set I’d just seen.
My dream would have reached two or three hundred kids; God’s dream reaches millions across the entire African continent every day.
I don’t know about you, but as I’ve grown older I find that I dream less.
I’m not talking about the kind of dreaming that interrupts you sleep. I’m talking about the kind of dreaming that hopes for the future, that wonders what God has in store, the kind of imaginings that wonder what big things God wants to do with my life.
This question had been bugging me: What big dreams am I imagining now?
God has been reminding me about the small dreams I had as a child and the way in which he fulfilled those beyond anything I could have guessed.
It’s like God is saying some of the best dreams you and I’ll live are the ones we can't even imagine right now.
I’ve been wondering if my lack of dreaming about the future somehow holds God back from “WOW”-ing me.
Of course, God doesn’t need my dreams to do amazing things, but he does need my heart to be available to him.
Somehow I think dreaming for God is part of that. It’s part of making ourselves available to him and saying, “I’m in, God, no matter what crazy plan you have up your sleeve.”
There is a story in the bible of an old man and his wife. Abraham and Sarah were well past the age of having children, in fact they were in their nineties, but God promised them they would have more children then there are grains of sand or hairs on a head.
The old woman actually laughed when she heard this. Wouldn’t you?
If God told you he wouldn’t only do the impossible but fulfill all your wildest dreams, wouldn’t you laugh?
In the midst of that disbelief God gave this old couple a child when there is no way they should have been able to give birth naturally.
It was impossible but God did it.
Right now, you might feel like bursting out laughing at the thought of God doing something to make your dream come true.
I want to encourage you that even if it seems impossible, God can still do it.
Even if right now you’re laughing. God can.
Even if you’re thinking there is no natural way it will happen. God can.
Don’t limit God with your small dreams. If you dream for him nothing is impossible.
I’m going to speak my dreams out loud even if I secretly laugh at them, even if they never come true. I’m going to dream for God because with God nothing is impossible.
I want to hold a book in my hands that I wrote which has been traditionally published.There, I spoke my dream. What is yours?
I’m daring to dream for God again. Won’t you join me by sharing your dream in the comments?
