Dreams are a lot like love. Both make you vulnerable. Dreams take you out on a limb. Once you extend yourself—who knows what will happen? You either leap to a higher branch, or fall to your demise! Anyone clinging to a branch faces crazy thoughts: You fool! You’re a failure. You will always fall short. (If you think I am overstating, then maybe you haven’t fought hard and long enough!) For a couple years I have chased a book-writing dream. I truly do not know where it will lead. But the journey has revealed some things worthy of passing along. I want to testify to how much I believe in dreams. Even without the end result in sight, I have discovered a silver lining to dream chasing. Consider three blessings belonging to limb huggers:
New digs
One of the prayers I said on my journey to getting published is, “What do I not know that I need to learn?” I have fully recognized that I am not enough. This has deepened my reach to the God who is! At his command are all the wisdom and resources required. I continue to pray in this searching way: “What do I need from you Lord that would make someone weak and limited like me—sufficient?” This dream has kept me digging down.
New discernment
Though I don’t know what will happen with Soul Whisperer, chasing it has opened my mind to things I would never have imagined thinking, creating, or developing. The Dominos began falling and they just didn’t stop! Why had that not happened before? It took a dream for that to begin. Don’t be afraid to go after something—you cannot realize now all that will be set in motion.
New destinies
In the end, it will take God to complete it. This is one of the hardest things about dreams. We have to trust something so close and precious to our hearts to the hands of Jesus. There is something awful and wonderful about having to do that. It is gut-wrenchingly scary. Yet he is fully able to notice the dream laid at his feet, pick it up, and carry it to its rightful destination. I know that some of my dreams will not come true, but God’s dream for my life will. His dream for me is ultimately good. I am learning to trust in that.
PS: One of the things that helped me go for it and sustain motivation—was to break the dream into accomplishment levels. My writing became: A dream of personal growth; A dream of ministry growth; A dream of providing materials for an amazing church like Sandals; A dream of providing training for dozens of churches; A dream of providing resources to North America; A dream of helping Christians reach others throughout the entire world. I still don’t know what level it will go. But every level is significant. Don’t you agree?
So today when you dust off an old dream or climb after a new one—why not do your own breakdown of the silver lining. Fear not!