| Surrendering Your Dreams |
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Most of us have experienced a time when our lives appear to be standing still. No matter how hard we work, it seems like every door is closed and no new ones are opening. Often that's because we have an image in our mind of what we want to be happening, and when we see that it isn't we think nothing is happening. We can end up in a stagnant wilderness of frustration and confusion if we have made idols out of our dreams.
God wants us to dream. He puts dreams in our heart for His purposes. But in our dreaming, He doesn't want us to exclude Him. God's Word says we will perish if we don't have a vision, but the vision we have must be His. If we don't have a vision from Him, then we don't have a vision that will ever be realized.
God wants us to surrender our dreams because we can't be led by Him if we are chasing after a dream of our own making. And He wants us to surrender all of them. That way He can tell us which of them are from Him and in line with His will, and which of them are ours and born out of our will. If they are only our dreams and visions and not His, we will experience a lifetime of unfulfillment and strife trying to make it happen. Even if the dream in your heart is from God, you still won't see it fulfilled until you give it to Him. The dream has to be realized His way.
He wants us to be His rose garden. He wants us to have beauty and purpose, and to give out a lifegiving fragrance to those around us. But first comes the pruning. First comes the period of dead-looking sticks. When God wants to make changes in our lives, and we are willing to let Him, He starts by cutting away all that is unnecessary.
In this process He strips from us everything that could hinder our future growth, in order to prepare us to bring forth good fruit. Our life may look barren during that time, but God is actually freeing us from anything that does not bring forth life. This process of surrendering all to the Lord, especially our dreams and desires, is called pruning.
God puts dreams in our hearts to give us vision and inspiration and to guide us to the right path. That's why we have to make sure the dreams we have are not from our own flesh. The only way to be sure is to lay all of our dreams at His feet and let them die. And we must also die to them. The ones that are not from Him will be buried forever. The ones that are from Him will be given new life.
We don't want to be just wishful thinkers. We want to live with confidence that our hopes, dreams, and expectations are based on God given certainty that He is behind them. We want the hope that comes from God alone and is built on a foundation of His promises to us and His revealed purposes in us. This kind of hope is an anchor to the soul.
Often God has us surrender our dreams because our dreams are usually for us. God wants our dreams to be for Him. He wants us to do what we do for His glory. Even if you are certain God has given you a vision or dream for your future, He will still ask you to surrender it to Him so thoroughly that you will think it's as good as dead.
God doesn't want any part of you to be unsurrendered not even the dreams He has put in your heart. If you give Him all of your dreams, then you will see which ones are born of His Spirit. Pursuing the ones that aren't will only lead to misery, frustration, and unfulfillment. Dying to your dreams is difficult, but if you reach up and take your Heavenly Father's hand, He will shine His light on the situation and walk you through the process step by step.
Source: Just enough light for the step I'm on; Stormie Omartian 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
13:10 This evil people, that refuse to hear my words, that walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is profitable for nothing.
8:25 But if we hope for that which we see not, `then' do we with patience wait for it.
12:6 And he said, Hear now my words: if there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known unto him in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream.
3:2 Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is.
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