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.

The Love Strand 4/28

Inaugural post

I sit here, in my workout clothes, practically glued to the computer as I try my best to figure out all the settings for another blog. I've not done well blogging for our photography site, so I really shake in my boots at the thought of taking one another. Yet I am compelled. These things that are happening in my heart, in our lives, in our discussions need to be shared. I don't know why. Maybe you will. I hope that my efforts (and less laundry and cleaning done) will benefit someone. I pray that my words will urge you, peak your interest, whet your own appetite for adventurous living with Christ. Can God use an ordinary life? The answer is a resounding YES. The secret is that you don't get to choose what that looks like.

As every high schooler does, I dreamt about what my life might look like ten years down the line. (It's now been 20 years, so I can speak to this with authority!) I filled in my little senior book with my happy picture: I would be a newscaster in Colorado (what could be a prettier location?), have a husband, children, a Rottweiler and a Saab with a white picket fence running around my yard. Life would be so good. I would be thinner, tanner and my hair would be grown out nice and long. It was a dream about one thing: ME.

Fortunately, God grabbed ahold of me while I attended Wheaton College and did not permit me to attempt such a selfish indulgence. I actively searched for my new path in life, officially changing my major 7 times! (It was a true miracle that I graduated in just 4 years.) I couldn't seem to decide. One night as my friends and I attended a campus movie,"The Mission,"  God spoke to my heart. It was so clear, there was no avoiding it. No shushing it. God's voice was clear and succinct: "WILL YOU GO?" The Holy Spirit was speaking and I wondered who else could hear! I looked over at my long line of friends in the seats surrounding me, they were engrossed in the film, seemingly not hearing the words that were now echoing repeatedly in my head. WILL YOU GO? WILL YOU GO? WILL YOU GO? My heart began to beat faster and faster. I suddenly realized I had to leave. I bolted from the chapel and ran back to my dorm room. Every time my feet hit the pavement I could hear the words with each step: WILL--YOU--GO? I flew up the stairs to my floor and went into the laundry room. I shut the door and stood there in the dark amazed that even the washing machines repeated the words of the Lord as they did their scrubbing duty. Tears began to stream down my face and I realized what He was saying to me. My quest for a life goal! Here it was, being given me when I least expected it! I boldly answered my Lord in that laundry room, my back up against the closed door, "Yes, Lord, I don't really know what you mean, but I will go. I WILL GO!"

So began my journey following God's dreams for me. I learned over time that I could never dream bigger or better than He already had. Each time I thought I had it figured out, it would totally change and His way would prevail. But I get ahead of myself. I'll have to post again. For now, I've got a workout to get in!