The Dream Surrender

For years, we had a {homemade} sign that hung in each of our many houses (and yes, trust me, it was a lot of houses!) that said:

Never surrender your dreams

We would pray about whatever decision was on the table and discuss and work through the many sides of it and inevitably one of us would look up at this sign.

We would read it and remind the other of our "dream" and we'd make a decision that went most in line with that dream that we clung to.

It's popular thought, isn't it? 

"Cling to your dreams!"  and "Go after your dreams!" "Chase your dreams!" ????

Well, we have learned something over recent days.

And it's not at all what I was expecting.

God wants us to want HIM. 

Not. A. Dream.

Not even when the dream is FOR HIM.

I have read many biographies of people I hold in highest esteem. Not ONE of them had a 5 year plan and told God what they hoped to achieve. They did not write out their plan of action nor did they decide how they would fund it. 

Not one!!

Rather, they were busy walking with God and He led them to places they had (or had not desired!) and He gave them great ministry right there.

Why are we clinging to this dream?!?!?

God is passionate, wise and all knowing. 

He has plans for each of our lives that Scripture calls "good, pleasing and perfect."

And guess what?

Clinging to the dreams that WE have dreamt for our lives, well, it's not right.

He wants us clinging that desperately to HIM.

(Not to some idea we have for what we would like to do with our time on this planet.)

This is BIG around here.

Serious paradigm shift.

The sign came down about 2 years ago now, but the impact of it's message...is like residue on the side of the shower door. You don't even notice it...until it's cleaning day.

Yesterday was cleaning day.

We went through the great struggle of laying a 20 year dream on the altar to the Lord.

"Lord, we don't want this more than we want You. If You want that for us, then You do it. We are tired of trying to make it happen. We cannot seem to on our own, and now we lay it out for you. It is no longer our dream."

We laid our dream on the altar to the Lord...away it floated from our grasp.

And interestingly...

there was a great BREAKTHROUGH OF JOY!!! We realized that what He is calling us to do at this moment in our lives was never foreseen by us...but He had it planned all along!!

Had we continued to obey the mantra "never surrender your dreams" we would have missed the blessing that God has planned for us. 

This is major. MA-JOR. MA-JOR!!!!

We have not said what our dream was, nor what this new blessing is that we believe God has for us, but let me suffice it to say: we didn't see it coming.

Ever.

(We will no doubt share this with you when the time is right.)

But even in the first day of obedience unto Him regarding this we have been filled with more joy than what is comprehendible!!

We also have the full confidence that by making this step, we will not circumvent any plans that God may have had for us with our original dream. We KNOW that if He wants to do that TOO--He will! Oh yes He will!!!

At the end of Ephesians 3, Paul prays for the church there in Ephesus. He prays, "...and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine..."

Let me tell you friends BOTH are true!! I am testifying to being FILLED to the measure of the fullness of God and confident that He will do immeasurably MORE than all we ask or imagine!!!

I read this morning in Romans 10 and a portion of verse 3 stood off the page to me, "Refusing to accept God's way, they cling to their own way..."

Oh not anymore, Lord.

Now we sit here filled with this new awe of the Lord and in great and mighty anticipation of this new thing.

If all the joy was not confirmation enough, I found this quote late last night and was covered in chills:

Better Than You Can Imagine

"You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deed and your thoughts toward us: none can compare with You! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told." Psalm 40:5

What would you like to be doing in ten years? Perhaps you have a picture in mind of what the perfect future looks like. Interestingly, many people who achieve all their goals find that their success was not as satisfying as they thought it would be.

Yet there are those who've forgotten their own plans in order to pursue God. As David testified in Psalm 40, they discover a life full of purpose and love-abundant in hope and wonder.

Friend, you can imagine great things, but God's plans for you are infinitely better than all of them. So pursue and obey Him. He'll grant your heart's deepest desires and never disappoint you.