"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalms 37:4)
Last night Pastor David spoke about dreams. He spoke of how often God will give us desires that will seem to nag at us and not go away. These dreams or desires are often placed there by God because they reflect something God wants us to accomplish in our lives, or bless us with. We can fuel these dreams by bathing these desires in prayer and exercising our faith in these areas to see these desires come to fruition. We start to hope.
*There are many stages in the process of God fulfilling our dreams. First of all, we need to look at our dreams/desires and determine if these are really from God. God will not give us desires which are not in His will.
Do they glorify God?
Are they contrary to God's word?
Do they glorify God?
Are they contrary to God's word?
*As we progress along in our journey of faith, these desires become clearer. Over time they begin to take definition as we start to see answers to our prayers. No longer do these desires seem like impossibilities, but they begin to have substance. They actually begin to make sense. :)
*Once the substance stage comes along there are often distractions or temptations which spring up to get us to take a detour.
One biblical example of this was Abraham and Hagar.
*We can also make decisions which are contrary to our dream/desire which will prolong it from happening.
Biblical example of this was Abraham and Lot. God did not give Abraham a son until he parted ways with Lot. He did not "leave his father's house" like God had said.
*Even after we are obeying and trusting in God and He has brought the desire to a substance and began to clarify it, we still must wait. These are the times when we need to persevere.
*After we have waited and persevered, there comes trials and problems which begin to take our dreams/desires away. We are bombarded with doubts and fears of all types. We may come to the end of ourselves and want to give up completely. It is in this time when we get on our knees and come to a place of absolute surrender. We realize that God is the only one who could make these problems disappear. He can use this time to cleanse our motives and strengthen our faith. This often happens right before our desires come to pass.
This really encouraged me on a number of levels because God has planted two specific things in my heart which have not happened yet. Two nagging desires that I cannot shake. I can confidently say they are from God because they would glorify Him. Still at times I have doubts and I have been tempted lately to make decisions contrary to these desires. Thankfully, I have escaped these temptations.
I am also encouraged because I feel this year is different. Not like a New Years resolution or whatever, because I don't believe in New Years resolutions. I think they are lame. But, lately things have slowly begun to change. The trials that I have been in for the last 3 years or so, seem to be lifting. It was as though I was in a state of continous trials for so long, I thought it had become permanent. I have *never* experienced trials like I have in the last few years. It was starting to become ridiculous and almost inhumane. I was so tempted to become bitter, and did a few times. I despaired for relatives who were in trials, I fought for my marriage, I saw a loved one completely walk away from the Lord, we had a layoff, a custody battle, anything and everything you could possibly think of happened. In a three year period. A few of these things haven't been resolved yet, but some have. Just *barely*. I felt like I was in a desert land wandering around without water, sandals or a visor. It's as though I just found a water fountain in the middle of the desert, and I have been drinking water but I almost forgot how it tasted. But now I see maybe God wanted these things to happen, maybe He allowed these things to happen because they were part of His plan. Maybe he wanted to get my attention and drastically break me into a million little pieces so He could put me back together. Maybe He wanted to bond my marriage so tight that He brought trial upon trial upon trial to teach us to unite. Maybe He wanted to grow my trust in Him and teach me to love.
Whatever the case He uses all things to work together for His good and I am thankful....for whatever horrendous reason these things have happened.
To think that even now He would even use a time like this to wave a glimmer of my heart's desires before my eyes brings tears to my eyes. Man, he is good.
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
— 1 John 5:14
