Dreams
God has placed many dreams in my heart. Since I was a kid, God has been leading me through my imagined future. I have not always been aware of this truth, but the older I get, the more clearly I see it. The Bible is clear that God fashioned my heart “individually.” That means when He made me, He made me uniquely. No two people look identical, just like no two snowflakes are identical. No one’s DNA is identical…and even more so, no one’s heart is like anyone else’s. The dreams in my heart are completely unique.
Psalms 33:14-15 From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; (15) He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.
This means that my hopes for what will occur in my life were actually tailored for me. The Darwinist would believe that we are all a blank slate, sharing the same basic makeup and structure, when we are born, waiting for external stimulus to form our personality, but the Bible teaches the opposite, that we were born as a dream of God made real to be fulfilled over time…called a life.
When I was a kid, I would imagine my future life. I remember thinking “how does a person get a real job and find a wife and have kids? How do they know how to do it?” Maybe you remember being a kid before you were old enough to drive, and marveling that your parent knew how to get from place to place! I remember my son Noah asking me a few years ago the same thing I asked my mom: “how do you even know where to go!?”
For someone who has never experienced their future, it can be overwhelming to imagine, let alone figure out…to nail down how it will all work. In fact, I have wasted a lot of time imagining futures that have never taken place. This is the cause of most people’s anxiety: an imaginary bad future that they frantically are trying to calculate how to avoid…but the seed of it is good. The seed is the dream God planted, the anxiety comes because we don’t trust Him to grow the seed into something real, especially when everything we see with our eyes seems to say the dream isn’t going to happen.
This morning, I heard God say the most amazing thing to me. A friend recently pointed me to this passage:
Galatians 4:1-2 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, (2) but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.
God had me put my name and His name in there and read it out loud…”now I say that TOM, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though TOM is master of all, but TOM is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by GOD.”
As I read this out loud, I realized the most amazing thing: that for quite a while, God has silently been drawing me into all I would “be master of” by the dreams He placed in my heart.
A sliver of this truth can be seen in my career path. When I was just finishing college, I interviewed for an internship with a firm in Benton Harbor. It was the first firm I had ever interviewed with that did the kind of work I was dreaming of doing. They had a really slick logo and marketing materials, and the guy who interviewed me (who later became a good friend) handed me a promotional packet as he sent me away without the internship. For the next few days I spent hours examining the glossy sheets… I loved the look and sound of this company. I realized this was my dream company…it matched what was in my heart to do. I prayed I would get to work there some day, even though the reality was they had rejected me that very same week. Sure enough, a year or so later, I did, in fact, get hired there!
A year later, after commuting an hour each way for a year, and seeing behind the veneer of some good marketing and VERY entry level pay, a longing had grown in my heart to get a job closer to home. I worried about how that might happen. I am sure I wasted a bit of time figuring out what to do next… but sure enough, when the time was right, a new opportunity to work at a much better firm arose and I got a much better job, with a real salary. Everything wasn’t perfect, but I really excelled with this company and became much better in my profession. I worked for one of the best consultants I have ever met, and learned life and professional skills from him, and my time in that company, that have now served me for a decade and a half. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, nor was my mentor.
About 5 years after I had worked in this new company, because of frustrations with several aspects of this job…a new dream began rising up in my heart…a dream to move on. In an effort of my own to quell the dissatisfaction, I actually transferred to a location an hour away…again commuting an hour each way…NOT a good solution. But through this time, I realized God was actually calling me to something brand new: to start my own company!
Sam and I discussed this new dream and both became excited about it…but the timing was all wrong. I knew with two kids under the age of three and one on the way, it was not going to work, even though at the time it seemed so exciting. I actually tried to find ways to “make it happen.” I interviewed with at least one company I can recall who was looking for a person to start a new venture in their organization. Thankfully, God blocked the way for that, because, sure enough, about a year after I started to dream about starting my own company, God opened the doors in some miraculous ways for me to actually to do it. It required a BIG risk, but I knew it was time. That initiated one the most challenging and rewarding times I could have imagined. Much harder, but also much more fulfilling, than I could have known.
The point of me writing all of this isn’t to say that I got everything I put my mind to, or wanted. None of my dreams worked out the way I imagined them…in fact, although each one looked like it would never happen, they did, in fact, happen in a way much better, and usually more challenging than I imagined.
What I am just starting to learn is that God, in His own time, has been incrementally answering….fulfilling…the dreams placed in my heart. Each step has required waiting on Him for the time to be right. Sometimes I have done this faithfully…and sometimes He has “helped” me by blocking my path (often in what seemed like very frustrating ways at the moment).
Each new dream of my life has also required a step forward at just the right time…sometimes with great risk and actual cost…but the truth is, it has all been orchestrated by God…I could have NEVER made any of these things happen. I have often had no idea where my dreams were leading, but the whole time God had one thing in mind:
John 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
The more God fulfills my dream, the more my dreams have been getting what I desire closer and closer to what He desires. The dreams in my heart are beginning to draw me nearer and nearer to where He is. This is the current cry of my heart:
Psalms 27:4 One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.
This has opened up a whole new set of dreams…much more exciting dreams than I could have ever imagined. I know there are dreams in my heart I haven’t even touched with imagination yet. God is showing me that the “guardians and stewards” have actually been the frustrating aspects of my life…the things that seem to be blocking me from my dreams:
…”but is under guardians and stewards”
People who haven’t seen my value, or a lack of resources…a sickness at the “wrong” time…an obligation to keep my word that prevented me from doing what I wanted…these have been “guardians” and “stewards” used of the Lord that, if I am honest about the record, have been instrumental in letting me eventually flow into my perfect future at the proper time.
God describes Himself as a good Father. I try to be a good dad, too. My son Noah recently turned 14. At 14, it seems that universally the next most important achievement on your mind is to get your driver’s license. Noah has been informing me of the price of cars (including Corvettes and Malibus, his two current favorites), the locations we can do driver’s training, the laws and regulations regarding drivers permits and licenses (funny, since he often “forgets” lots of other things, like whether or not he did homework) for about a year and half! He is seemingly obsessed with getting his driver’s license. I know that none of these things will matter until he is a.) old enough to sign up for drivers training, and b.) old enough to actually drive a car. But, in Noah’s mind, these are all IMMEDIATE concerns.
The truth is, a kid can’t see life the way His father sees it…From the world’s perspective, it makes some sense for him to be anxious about how all of this is going to work out. The trouble with his anxiety is that it actually steals a little bit from the joy he could be feeling about the where he is right now. I try to reassure him often that at just the right time, we will cross all of these bridges.
Recently…as time has drug on for him…Noah has started to realize what cars actually cost, and how much more difficult it is to save money than he thought it would be…the result is that he has started to lower his standard of the car he is dreaming about. I think the last one he pointed to as a potential car he would like was a rusted out Yugo that had been hand-painted camouflage! As time wears on him…he is beginning to compromise the dream in his heart…but the truth is, his father has a much better car in mind than a barely running hand-camoed Yugo (don’t tell him or he won’t save his money…thankfully he would never read something this long that his dad wrote), it is just that until the time is right, we really can’t cross this bridge together.
God wants me to realize in many ways I am like Noah. God wants me to BELIEVE He is a good father. He hasn’t forgotten the dreams he placed in my heart, and he doesn’t want me to waste time and trade what is available to me now for being anxious about how to force my dreams to happen sooner than they should…let alone compromise the dream in my heart for something less than, because I am afraid He won’t do the real thing. At the proper time, He will do all this and more!
…”UNTIL the time appointed by the father.”
What is the dream in your heart?
Psalms 33:14-15 From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; (15) He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.
This means that my hopes for what will occur in my life were actually tailored for me. The Darwinist would believe that we are all a blank slate, sharing the same basic makeup and structure, when we are born, waiting for external stimulus to form our personality, but the Bible teaches the opposite, that we were born as a dream of God made real to be fulfilled over time…called a life.
When I was a kid, I would imagine my future life. I remember thinking “how does a person get a real job and find a wife and have kids? How do they know how to do it?” Maybe you remember being a kid before you were old enough to drive, and marveling that your parent knew how to get from place to place! I remember my son Noah asking me a few years ago the same thing I asked my mom: “how do you even know where to go!?”
For someone who has never experienced their future, it can be overwhelming to imagine, let alone figure out…to nail down how it will all work. In fact, I have wasted a lot of time imagining futures that have never taken place. This is the cause of most people’s anxiety: an imaginary bad future that they frantically are trying to calculate how to avoid…but the seed of it is good. The seed is the dream God planted, the anxiety comes because we don’t trust Him to grow the seed into something real, especially when everything we see with our eyes seems to say the dream isn’t going to happen.
This morning, I heard God say the most amazing thing to me. A friend recently pointed me to this passage:
Galatians 4:1-2 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, (2) but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.
God had me put my name and His name in there and read it out loud…”now I say that TOM, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though TOM is master of all, but TOM is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by GOD.”
As I read this out loud, I realized the most amazing thing: that for quite a while, God has silently been drawing me into all I would “be master of” by the dreams He placed in my heart.
A sliver of this truth can be seen in my career path. When I was just finishing college, I interviewed for an internship with a firm in Benton Harbor. It was the first firm I had ever interviewed with that did the kind of work I was dreaming of doing. They had a really slick logo and marketing materials, and the guy who interviewed me (who later became a good friend) handed me a promotional packet as he sent me away without the internship. For the next few days I spent hours examining the glossy sheets… I loved the look and sound of this company. I realized this was my dream company…it matched what was in my heart to do. I prayed I would get to work there some day, even though the reality was they had rejected me that very same week. Sure enough, a year or so later, I did, in fact, get hired there!
A year later, after commuting an hour each way for a year, and seeing behind the veneer of some good marketing and VERY entry level pay, a longing had grown in my heart to get a job closer to home. I worried about how that might happen. I am sure I wasted a bit of time figuring out what to do next… but sure enough, when the time was right, a new opportunity to work at a much better firm arose and I got a much better job, with a real salary. Everything wasn’t perfect, but I really excelled with this company and became much better in my profession. I worked for one of the best consultants I have ever met, and learned life and professional skills from him, and my time in that company, that have now served me for a decade and a half. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, nor was my mentor.
About 5 years after I had worked in this new company, because of frustrations with several aspects of this job…a new dream began rising up in my heart…a dream to move on. In an effort of my own to quell the dissatisfaction, I actually transferred to a location an hour away…again commuting an hour each way…NOT a good solution. But through this time, I realized God was actually calling me to something brand new: to start my own company!
Sam and I discussed this new dream and both became excited about it…but the timing was all wrong. I knew with two kids under the age of three and one on the way, it was not going to work, even though at the time it seemed so exciting. I actually tried to find ways to “make it happen.” I interviewed with at least one company I can recall who was looking for a person to start a new venture in their organization. Thankfully, God blocked the way for that, because, sure enough, about a year after I started to dream about starting my own company, God opened the doors in some miraculous ways for me to actually to do it. It required a BIG risk, but I knew it was time. That initiated one the most challenging and rewarding times I could have imagined. Much harder, but also much more fulfilling, than I could have known.
The point of me writing all of this isn’t to say that I got everything I put my mind to, or wanted. None of my dreams worked out the way I imagined them…in fact, although each one looked like it would never happen, they did, in fact, happen in a way much better, and usually more challenging than I imagined.
What I am just starting to learn is that God, in His own time, has been incrementally answering….fulfilling…the dreams placed in my heart. Each step has required waiting on Him for the time to be right. Sometimes I have done this faithfully…and sometimes He has “helped” me by blocking my path (often in what seemed like very frustrating ways at the moment).
Each new dream of my life has also required a step forward at just the right time…sometimes with great risk and actual cost…but the truth is, it has all been orchestrated by God…I could have NEVER made any of these things happen. I have often had no idea where my dreams were leading, but the whole time God had one thing in mind:
John 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
The more God fulfills my dream, the more my dreams have been getting what I desire closer and closer to what He desires. The dreams in my heart are beginning to draw me nearer and nearer to where He is. This is the current cry of my heart:
Psalms 27:4 One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.
This has opened up a whole new set of dreams…much more exciting dreams than I could have ever imagined. I know there are dreams in my heart I haven’t even touched with imagination yet. God is showing me that the “guardians and stewards” have actually been the frustrating aspects of my life…the things that seem to be blocking me from my dreams:
…”but is under guardians and stewards”
People who haven’t seen my value, or a lack of resources…a sickness at the “wrong” time…an obligation to keep my word that prevented me from doing what I wanted…these have been “guardians” and “stewards” used of the Lord that, if I am honest about the record, have been instrumental in letting me eventually flow into my perfect future at the proper time.
God describes Himself as a good Father. I try to be a good dad, too. My son Noah recently turned 14. At 14, it seems that universally the next most important achievement on your mind is to get your driver’s license. Noah has been informing me of the price of cars (including Corvettes and Malibus, his two current favorites), the locations we can do driver’s training, the laws and regulations regarding drivers permits and licenses (funny, since he often “forgets” lots of other things, like whether or not he did homework) for about a year and half! He is seemingly obsessed with getting his driver’s license. I know that none of these things will matter until he is a.) old enough to sign up for drivers training, and b.) old enough to actually drive a car. But, in Noah’s mind, these are all IMMEDIATE concerns.
The truth is, a kid can’t see life the way His father sees it…From the world’s perspective, it makes some sense for him to be anxious about how all of this is going to work out. The trouble with his anxiety is that it actually steals a little bit from the joy he could be feeling about the where he is right now. I try to reassure him often that at just the right time, we will cross all of these bridges.
Recently…as time has drug on for him…Noah has started to realize what cars actually cost, and how much more difficult it is to save money than he thought it would be…the result is that he has started to lower his standard of the car he is dreaming about. I think the last one he pointed to as a potential car he would like was a rusted out Yugo that had been hand-painted camouflage! As time wears on him…he is beginning to compromise the dream in his heart…but the truth is, his father has a much better car in mind than a barely running hand-camoed Yugo (don’t tell him or he won’t save his money…thankfully he would never read something this long that his dad wrote), it is just that until the time is right, we really can’t cross this bridge together.
God wants me to realize in many ways I am like Noah. God wants me to BELIEVE He is a good father. He hasn’t forgotten the dreams he placed in my heart, and he doesn’t want me to waste time and trade what is available to me now for being anxious about how to force my dreams to happen sooner than they should…let alone compromise the dream in my heart for something less than, because I am afraid He won’t do the real thing. At the proper time, He will do all this and more!
…”UNTIL the time appointed by the father.”
What is the dream in your heart?
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