50 hours of non mentally capturing work has a way of making visionaries think outside the box. In the space of dust is the perfect place to imagine 6 impossible things before breakfast, especially when you start early.
So why not dream a bit...
What a property could become and the businesses could be...
Who people in dark and dangerous places could become... and how we could potentially help them.
What we want our legacy to be...
The multiple types of work we'd love to do like florist, author, painter, chef, world changer, social enterprising, travel blogger, pilot, designer, and the list could go on...
The things we'd still love to see and do...
How could we bless the people around us, and how can we speak words of life to them?
I watch people around me and wonder if they still hold a dream in their heart. If they have become jaded and quit dreaming. If life has handed too many lemons to feel like trying to squeeze something delicious out of it, or if buried deep inside is still that one thing they want to do.
I get it. Smashed dreams. Brokenness. Raw. But my friends, that is not where it stops.
I've heard so many quotes like "If you find yourself in a bad chapter, it's not the end of the story."
Last year's birthday gift from God was a divinely appointed coffee appointment with someone who has seen really amazing things come on the heels of bad circumstances.
An older lady shared about a dramatic time in her life of losses and gains.
Isaiah 62 talks about how God pursues us till His righteousness reflects back to Him from us. It's His love that takes all kinds of things that we don't like and uses them to show us how much He cares.
Psalm 105 talks about Joseph and how he was tested till his dream came to pass. I heard a sermon recently about how the Bible says during each difficult part of this patriarch's life that "...God was with him." Joseph has become one of my heroes that God keeps bringing back to encourage me. Recently, I found notes from an old Bible School class entitled "Joseph." One of my most favorite Sight and Sound plays is the one about Joseph. I shared his story with a friend going through a difficult time along with the rest of his ethnic group in Asia. I'm sure he felt his story was hard, that it wasn't anything fantastic or special, and yet here I am, thousands of years later, still contemplating his faithfulness, courage, and trust as I process my own dreams that haven't yet come to pass.
So if you find yourself in the middle of hard circumstances and the road is all uphill, rest, but don't quit. As some might say, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings."
There are better things to come.
Instead of turning to building relationship safety features and security so deep that most people have no idea what is happening inside anymore, dream.
So go ahead and dream of the impossible, hard things working out.
That work turning out far beyond your dreams...
That relationship becoming way better then you ever could imagine...
That desire being fulfilled in ways beyond your current comprehension...
Dream, not because the circumstances seem to indicate hope, but because you trust in the One who is in the business of redemption and hope.
Dare to go even farther and dream of crushed hope being rebuilt...
Of smashed dreams being resurrected in something far more fabulous...
Of broken things being turned into beautiful pieces of divine art...
Base your hope and trust on Him, nothing else... commit it to Him and He will bring it to pass, in His time, for your good.
