There is something big and eternal about our dreams and desires that make them powerful because they come from someone big and eternal and powerful
I don’t always know what God will put on my heart to write about. Sometimes it is something like a lesson or “sermon,” I suppose... to stir me in a new way. Sometimes it is through something I have experienced in my own life that takes form into words where God has shown me something like wisdom to chew on. Other times though I don’t have much to say other than simply opening up what is in my heart.
To be honest, that is probably the hardest one of all because it is the most personally reflective rather than it seeming to come more from God’s heart than mine.
This is somewhat of a simple yet profound journal entry because it is what we don’t often talk about yet often takes occurrence in our lives.
I speak of the going ins and coming outs... the eb and flow of our day-to-day existence.
What we are all experiencing now, which is the beginning of a new year, a starting point for unknowns and unravellings that are pivotal characteristics in what we would all agree is our journey in this life.
After finishing teaching a student, I walked to my car not 20 yards away being taken over by a simple and peaceful moment, breathing in the briskly refreshing cold air of our Texas winter evening.
Some kids were playing a game in the street with a football and cars whisking by probably rushing to finally be home.
What is the point to all of this?
Honestly, I am not sure, but if I could touch on something, I would say that there is a sense of something new in the air.
Yes, today (when I wrote this) is just another day, no different than any other day if you look at days like a calendar would if it could see.
But we are not calendars . . . in fact, crafted by God to be imaged to Him as a wonderful reflection.
I am not talking physically as if there is something in the air one of our senses can pick out.
No, I am talking about something inside of our hearts, longing for something new . . . fresh . . . and not yet explored.
Something intangible, yet seemingly in reach, somehow moving towards us as we move towards it.
It is like the feeling you get trying a food for the first time or picking up a crisp brand new magazine before catching a 3 hour flight.
We all crave and I dare say need things new and things fresh to our senses. More importantly, we need things to sink deeper from the shallows of what we perceive to the depths of our heart through what we experience.
Although many may disagree, I would say getting back in any kind of “physical shape” is one of the hardest things we could set our minds to do considering our industrial and rather efficient way of living.
There is the soreness and fatigue that seems to last weeks, not to mention the quite gruelingly forceful fitting into our schedules making time for physical exercise demands.
With such busy lives spreading our emotional and psychological capacities so thin, no wonder we choose binging shows or taking out the trash more doable than grabbing a dumbbell or going for a jog.
With every spare minute we have, it seems to be more necessary to just take a rest from all the business rather than jump on the time for something more exerting.
What is hard is we are out of “shape,” therefore we must work even harder to attain a more enjoyable work out.
Obviously when I say “getting back in shape,” I don’t necessarily mean that literally, although it makes also for a great literal example of what I mean.
It is hard for us to act on what we want to do if we lack the proper desires and reasons to do them.
So what we need isn’t another “New Year Resolution” or a better work-out plan for our life.
What we need is much deeper if we want any kind of “new direction” or “fresh vision” to actually stick longer than a few months.
What we need is to join in what God has already offered to give us when it is time for new things to take form in our life.
The language I have observed He most often chooses to use is the language of dreams and desires.
He cleverly plants them like small seeds in us at the beginning stages of our lives and if we allow them to be, He cultivates them as we live.
Also, often times what we call perhaps a “new direction“ or “fresh vision“ really has been churning inside of us like butter, becoming creamy intangible reasons that drive us to make tangible the dreams and desires which have been inside of us all along.
What we do always starts inside of us . . . and it usually starts small.
Maybe it is inside of you in the from of an idea . . . but ideas fall from the clouds of dreams like rain, giving water to the seeds which become the very things we dream.
Here is what makes dreams special . . . they don’t come from us.
There is something big and eternal about our dreams and desires that make them powerful because they come from someone big and eternal and powerful.
Don’t waste time with ambition.
When I hear someone talk of ambition, I hear a likeness to a child talking about what they want that they don’t have yet, shallow and without anything anchored beyond selfish success.
But when I hear someone speaking of dreams that have stirred for too long within the depths of who they are, I hear something God-placed, reflecting fingerprints from the Artist who created them and what is alive within them.
Sure, we can take our dreams the wrong direction or they can become warped and twisted within us . . . but they are always a reflection of something God originally placed inside of us.
Joining what newness already awaits us in the plans God already has for us means aligning first with what He has already placed in us.
It all starts basically with taking ourselves and the dreams and desires there seriously.
Taking them just as serious as if God himself placed them there . . . which turns out, is true.
There is a hope here to be taken hold of to get us out of any “ruts” or lacking of courage from lost hope that may have or may still be hindering us.
God gives us a reborn perspective when we align with the newness knowing His will brings.
Something as simple as a stroll to my car reminds me something new is in the air . . . is in reach . . . very true and utterly real.
In the driveway of our friend’s house on New Years Eve, God gave my wife and I a new vision for the direction He wants us to begin taking steps toward.
It was a stirring to trail-blaze regions of our dreams and desires we have not yet stepped foot to discover, of which ultimately are His plans for our lives.
We were still in the midst of what started as a simple conversation when the deeper dreams that were seemingly dormant underneath past the practical and reasonable were exposed for both of us.
As the car was still running parked at the house and the conversation ever more exciting, what was no longer waiting but had been uncovered left us utterly baffled at how clear the direction we were suppose to head was.
In that moment, God wasn’t placing new dreams and desires in us but rather the desire to act upon already existing ones we maybe hadn’t quite taken as seriously as we were now meant to.
This was a hope given to us . . . a start towards something tangible.
I can’t put into words the simple sense of mere hope it has given us in ways we didn’t even know we were desperate for.
To those who have felt the feeling that the quote depicts, to be “back in the saddle again,” is a very fulfilling part of something new.
Whether it is doing what has already been done or starting something that you’ve never done before, they both posses a uniqueness and a newness that warrants the feeling only new beginnings can bring.
Take a moment to breathe in the refreshingly cold crisp evening air of what God has for you at maybe a new beginning towards dreams and desires in you that aren’t so new . . . which have perhaps been cultivated since you entered this world by the One who created you.
(Maybe it won’t be so hard like “getting back in shape” and will without a doubt feel more like getting “back in the saddle again.“)
