Your Dreams or His Dreams?

How did you visualize your future when you were eighteen years old? How about when you were twenty-one? How about when you turned twenty-five? Was there a difference in your plans, dreams, and expectations between those three?

Maybe I’m unique among the general populace, but my visualization of who I was going to be, where I was going to end up, and what I would be doing with my life was different each of those times. Each life dream was conjured, nursed, guarded, petted, shattered, and remade.

At eighteen, I thought I would be a pastor.

Didn’t happen.

At twenty-one, I thought I would be married.

Didn’t happen.

At twenty-four, I thought I would go to seminary.

Didn’t happen.

The age of twenty-four found me with two college degrees and a job in a small Christian elementary school classroom. Was this what I had visualized I would be doing six years ago? No. But was it where God wanted me?

Absolutely.

Dreams are a funny thing. We become so attached to them that it drives us crazy, and if you’re like me, you’re constantly going over them in your mind, comparing them to what your life actually looks like, massaging and re-working them, scheming about how your omnipotent self might will those dreams into existence.

What is God’s response to this? “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh…” (Psalm 2:4)

I am not saying that we should not plan diligently, nor am I saying that dreams are in themselves evil. William Carey, a great missionary, said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” However, every person must examine their dreams often and ask themselves, “Am I attempting this great thing for God, or myself?”

There were tasks and projects in those first few days and months in the ministry that I never dreamed I would one day be doing. I found myself saying often, “They didn’t teach me how to do this in Bible college!” For instance, one of the things that was in sore need of an upgrade was the church’s sound equipment. “Upgrade” is putting it lightly. It needed a complete removal and replacement. I didn’t know the first thing about sound systems. If you had asked me what the difference was between an active and a passive speaker, or if we needed phantom power, or how many aux sends were we intending to use for stage monitors, or even what brand names were considered quality, I would have given you a blank stare. But we needed a new sound system, and it was my job to assess what we needed, install it, and stay within a reasonable budget. I may cover the particulars of this project in a future blog post, but suffice it to say that it got done, and I have learned a whole lot from that experience!

Your life may not look like what you imagined it would look like five, ten, or twenty years ago. You probably have dreams that have gone unfulfilled for a long time. You have regrets, mistakes you’ve made, opportunities you did not take, and a cloud of “what-ifs” occupying your mind. Don’t dwell on those.

The only thing that matters is if you are where God wants you to be right now. The decisions you are making, the relationships you are fostering, the money you are spending, the children you are raising, the battles you are choosing, are they all what God would want you to do?

I still have dreams for my life, but I like to think that I hold them a little more loosely than I did when I was eighteen. That will be ten years ago this year as I write this. My plans may not always match up with God’s plans, but I can say with confidence that it is in His plans that I find the most peace, fulfillment, and joy that I have ever known.

The ministry is God’s calling on my life, and I have answered that calling. Does God have you where He wants you?