“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” Proverbs 29:18.
“I have a dream…”
What a great opening line!
There’s a reason Martin Luther King was such an inspiring activist. He wasn’t focused on destroying racism. He had a vision for building something new.
I’ve been able to predict which Presidents would get elected in the last twenty years. From Obama to Trump, I listened. When I heard vision, I knew. That guy’s going to be in the Oval Office.
What’s your dream?
I’ll never forget seeing a Remax billboard:
“What moves you?”
Something that gets me is reading about men and women of yesteryear.
Miraculous healings, revivals that sweep an entire nation, men who have prayed significant world changes into existence.
Those true stories stir my imagination and fire up my heart.
I’m over there thinking: “okay, how did they get there? What did they do? What were the steps?”
And not just that. I mean, my girlfriend accuses me of always wanting the perfect kind of food.
I can still taste the incredible bolognese sauce in the lasagna I ate at a hotel restaurant in Grand Junction, CO, ten years ago.
But that’s me. What’s yours? What do you crave more of?
In some way or another, we all have that same yearning for “more”. God put that into our DNA; it’s a part of Who He is.
Imagination is a really underrated tool in the kingdom of God.
It’s easy to use it in the natural realm. For instance, I recently imagined a whole scenario with how I thought something would go. It was awful. People were yelling, throwing things.
None of it actually happened.
But people will imagine themselves right into sickness or calamity.
The Bible talks about “vain imaginations”. In other words, when you’re not using your imagination correctly, it’s being used in vain
But God gave us an imagination.
Our imagination is the birthplace of desire. We can imagine the things we desire of the Lord.
Guys, we are so loved, our desires, even our common, natural ones, matter to the Lord. It’s what causes God to move on our behalf.
Over and over again, people came to Jesus to impose their desires and needs on Jesus, and over and over again, Jesus was moved by them.
To blind Bartimaues, Jesus asked: “What do you want Me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32)
To His first disciples: “What do you seek?” (John 1:38)
To the sick man at the pool: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)
To the Canaanite woman who would not take ‘no’ for an answer, Jesus said: “Let it be as you desire.” (Matthew 15:26)
Reader, do you want to be made well? What do you seek? What do you desire?
Of course, sometimes these desires had to be redirected.
The Pharisees wanted a sign He was the Son of God(because healing the blind, raising the dead, delivering a man from a devil, etc, wasn’t proof enough, apparently).
Or the mother of the sons of Zebedee desired that her sons be given places of honor in Heaven.
Instead, Jesus rebuked or explained why it wouldn’t work.
But none of these things would have moved Jesus if the desire wasn’t expressed.
God has plans for us as well. BIG plans.
How big are they?
SO big: we can’t even imagine them.
SO big: God has to get us to take us through this crazy school in life to prepare our hearts to walk in them.
And I catch my craziness fighting against these plans.
Over the winter, God moved me to a new season.
(God always has to change it up on me to keep me from getting too comfortable, from getting stagnant in my spiritual growth.)
Now, I felt I constantly had my toes stepped on. And this reaction in my heart kept coming up.
“Bug off. I’m fine. You’re not better than me.”
In other words: self-righteousness.
I knew God was deliberately allowing situations to come up so God could point it out to me.
“You see this ugly root of self-righteousness? I want it gone. Can you give it to Me?”
I mean: I knew better than to actually say it out loud. Most of the time, that is. But thinking it can be just as bad.
Over and over again, I felt that still, small Voice:
“Are you going to let Me have your precious self-justification in exchange for My perspective in this situation?”
It wasn’t easy.
Those words: “I”m just as good as you are!” were on the tip of my tongue.
But I finally swallowed them. I let it go.
“God, what do You want to say here?” I wondered at last.
A few nights later, I realized what it was. These ones–attacking me! Harrassing me! Publically slandering me!--suddenly became real people.
Suddenly, I saw them as God saw them. Everything changed. Compassion took the place where pride had stood. God could finally get to me so that their hurts could break my heart.
My sister told me of a dream she had about me.
Many were lost, disillusioned. I stood up and began to speak to them, sharing with them openly about my journey.
“I had never seen you that ‘free’,” my sister said.
She had never seen me so inhibited by my human bondages to be able to speak that clearly.
My real struggles and stories set the people free.
For the first time, I was able to act as a clear reflection so people could see God’s love and God’s joy for them, and it changed them.
“I believe everything you’re going through is for that,” my sister told me.
God has a dream about you as well, reader. He has a unique call and plan for you.
And He yearns to hear your desire.
More than you can ask or think, as Ephesians 3:20 says.
Come boldly to the throne room, to paraphrase Hebrews 4:16.
Behold the storehouses of Heaven, and dare to dream.
