God has given me the high privilege and honor of teaching high school students and the children at church. I recognize that this is an opportunity to plant seeds in the lives of my students. I want them to have dreams and to realize that their dreams could come true. Dreams, in my mind, are a source of hope and we all need hope to persevere through the tough times in life.
There are several types of dreams. There are dreams that we all experience at night which include crazy adventures and wild fantasies. There are dreams of winning the lottery. It can be fun to dream about what you would do if you won all that money. There are also those dreams of becoming rich and famous through something like “American Idol” or through hard work in our professions. While these dreams are interesting to entertain, they are not the dreams to which I refer.
The dreams I am talking about relate to accomplishing something great or fulfilling a God-ordained purpose for your life. Some people falsely believe that God wants to grant all our dreams, as if God were some kind of fairy godmother. God wants us to pursue our dreams, to reach for our dreams, but he does not promise us that we will reach and accomplish our dreams.
That may shock you, but it’s true. Consider King David, who dreamed of building God a temple. God did not allow him to do it or see it. But David needed to plant the seed of that dream in the heart of his children, hoping that it would root in the heart of one of them. Moses wanted to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land. It was his dream. God did not allow him to touch his dream. He led the people all the way to the river and then God didn’t allow him to finish the job. God allowed him to see into the Promised Land but not enter it.
God wants us to have dreams, He wants us to pursue those dreams, but he wants us to understand that the fulfillment of those dreams is not quite as important as the process and the testing and maturing of our faith.
My pastor told our congregation recently that people who pursue dreams will normally hit brick walls, places where it looks like the dreams will not come true. It’s in this place where God wants to test us, to see if we have faith in him. Do we trust him to help us reach our dreams?
A God-inspired dream is normally something that we cannot accomplish without his intervention. He literally wants us to dream the impossible dream so we can grow our faith and live in a place where we have to trust him.
If you look at many of the battles in the Old Testament, you will discover that the people were up against impossible odds. In some of the cases, the situation was perilous. In most of the cases, if the people trusted in God, then he provided a way for them to experience victory.
Did you notice that I said in most cases?
Sometimes God allowed the people to be defeated and taken into captivity. God is more concerned about our relationship with him than he is about us achieving our dreams. Will he eventually bring victory? I believe he will if our heart attitude is right and we trust in him. God allows the test, the possibility of failure, to find out if we really trust him. Will we believe and maintain our relationship no matter what the outcome in our circumstances?
Faith sometimes requires us to walk through the fire, having to trust and believe in a great, big God even when we can’t see the solution.
Dreams that are worth touching require us to stretch our faith, reaching beyond ourselves, trusting and believing even when common sense and reality seem to be pointing in a different direction. Dreams are meant to drive us closer to God and to help us build a more intimate relationship.
I want to encourage you not to give up on your dreams. God-inspired dreams are always bigger than you. God wants to bless you with the fulfillment of your dreams, but like any good parent, he wants you to grow spiritually and to believe not only in yourself but in him.
God believes in you and he wants you to experience success and victory, but he wants you to do it while being connected with him.
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Doug Creamer teaches Marketing at East Davidson High School. He writes a weekly column. His Web site is located at www.dougcreamer.com He is the author of two books, “Encouraging Thoughts” and “The Bluebird Café.” Contact him at PO Box 777, Faith, N.C. 28041 or e-mail dougcreamerbooks@yahoo.com.