I have a dream! Part 1

I have a dream.

My dream began at a very unusual time. It came to me in my darkest hour, during my greatest failure, at my lowest point, when all my other dreams seemed to be shattered. It came to me through a prayer that I would verbalize out loud to God. God seemed very far away and I would shout it out hoping God would hear. "I don't want to die like this, God! I don't want this to be the end of my story!" I know it sounds morbid but thankfully God, in all of His faithfulness, heard me. At that point it came to me - an overwhelming sense that God had something "great" for me to do. And not just a "great" work to accomplish but that He actually wanted me to be "great." This was a bold dream, a completely absurd dream, possibly could be construed as an arrogant dream but, I assure you, it was a God dream. For me, it took the shattering of my dreams and future in order to embrace the dream that God had for me. It took this low point to realize that . . .

God has a dream for me.

It's a dream for me to achieve greatness in the way that God defines greatness. It's a dream for me to find success in the way that God defines success. It's a dream for me to truly live as He defines living. It's easy to miss out on this dream. We are often duped into thinking God saved us to be "good." So we go by the rules, conform to a standard, put on our Sunday best. We strive to be "good" instead of pursuing something "great." It can be a disappointing life to live to be "good." It's hard to be "good." We and everyone around us fail at it often. And when this happens, we tend to write people off, judge and condemn, as well as live with guilt and shame that God never intended us to live under. We were never able to be "good" before Christ entered our lives and to pursue it now falls well short of God's dream for us. I'm not suggesting that we are suppose to be "bad" or that being "good" doesn't matter but I am saying that "good" is a poor substitute for "great." God's dream for you is bigger than that. And, to be honest, its easier to be "great" than "good." To be "good," I have to follow a lot of rules but to be "great" I only have to keep two: Love God and love others. And the funny thing is, when you start practicing these, you find it much easier to be "good" and to be "good" for the right reasons.

And now I have a dream to fulfill God's dream.

(To be continued)