Desperate Dreamer

How do you know when to let go?

I find myself wondering that a lot lately.

Which dreams are just fantasy and which are the dreams God has placed on your heart in order to fulfill His purposes for your life?

I have a lot of dreams.

Some of them I know are out of reach and that’s ok. It’s nice sometimes to indulge myself in daydreams. They aren’t really deep longings, just fanciful whimsy about life-as-it-could-be. You know; what if a long-lost uncle left me a small fortune? Or what if I won a trip somewhere amazing like Ireland or Australia? Or what if I wrote a book and it hit the best-seller list?

But there are other dreams… things I want desperately, and yet I don’t know if God wants those same things for me.

I’m not ready for another relationship – I may never be ready – but I see marriages that work and I dream. I have my children (and to some extent my mom), but I see extended families that love and I dream. I love where I live and the comforts I enjoy, but I see fellow Christians going on life-changing mission trips and I dream. I have a job I enjoy that pays the bills and gives me confidence, but I see people going back to school and I dream. I am fairly content to live in quiet obscurity, but I see people who have found a voice and a platform and I dream.

How much of my dreaming is wasted?

How much of my time spent dreaming could be better spent living in the real world and accepting life as it is? How much madness and misery am I condemning myself to by wishing for things that aren’t mine to have?

When is it time to let go?

I wish the answers were easier than they have been thus far.

The scriptures say that if you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). What an amazing promise! If we give ourselves over to God and delight in His ways, His desires become our desires and His will becomes our will. And then He gives us our dreams – because they are His!

And yet…

I struggle with contentment and with giving my whole self over to God. I struggle with believing that God is enough – that God is the true desire of my heart. So how can I possibly know which dreams come from God’s heart and which come from mine (which is desperately wicked and beyond cure - Jeremiah 17:9)? And how can I ask God to give me my dreams when I haven’t really turned them over to Him? When I haven’t really trusted Him with them?

There’s a dreamer trapped in this pragmatist’s body. Which me is following God and which is the fool?

What deep dreams do you cherish and how has God shown Himself to you in those dreams?