Dream on
How many hours have I spent at that table just there, scribbling heart-bits in my journal, leather-bound Bible open before me? Listing fingerprints, sweet traces of the eternal, in my Gratitude Journal, written down in pink gel pen? Scratching out the weekly column long hand in the big, big book with the girlish cover? How many?
My thoughts wander on today, smiling once more over the grace that appears table side in the form of the lovely Tiffany, delivering a muffin hot from the oven. “Is there anything else you need?” she says, face bright. Oh, they take care of me here, those girls do.
The divine appointments ordained. The acquaintances-turned-friends, treasures found in ordinary days. The dreams I’ve dreamt here in this spot…
The dreams.
I recall a piece written a couple of weeks ago, then a private message that came sometime later. “I was so taken with the fact that you daydream about what is happening to you now,” an honest friend had written. “I always have dismissed those types of thoughts as not from the Lord; I think I have been wrong!”
Lifting the mug, I think of the colorful and vivid dreams I’ve entertained here in this place. Dreams of agents and contracts and publishers and books. Big, outrageous dreams that will never happen unless He moves in and shakes things up.
Thinking; still, I remember my words to her. “‘Without a vision, the people perish.’ That’s the verse that came to mind as I was mulling this over. If the Lord didn’t give me ‘someday’ dreams, ‘today stuff’ would get pretty discouraging. It keeps me motivated and willing/able to work hard, believing for what He’s promised for down the road. Everyone needs to dream; it’s how stuff gets done.”
“Delight yourself in the Lord,” said the Psalmist, “and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Oh, yes. Yes! Here’s the key to dreaming that’s good. Delighting – reveling – in Him; pressing ever forward into intimacy, diving straight into the Father’s heart, that’s where you start. Then it’s His turn. He puts desires (holy dreams) right into your heart, dreams that match up with your calling, your gifting, and your passion. Those dreams within become a fire in your bones; they do.
Then, gloriously, He brings them to pass. He makes them happen. He accomplishes them in ways you couldn’t have imagined, for that way, you can’t steal the credit or the glory.
Can I tell you that I’m living it right now? That it’s unfolding before my very eyes? For there’s no way a girl with a high school diploma can get a live literary agent on the phone, but God can. There’s no way a smallish mother of four boys can pull strings and meet with a powerful potential investor, but God can. There’s no earthly way one working-from-home mama can sustain a weekly column, then land a spot in an international magazine with big, big implications on her own, but God can.
He can and He has and He will. That’s why I persist in dreaming those crazy dreams at the coffee shop and in my house and on the road as I run. And if He can and He has and He will for me, my friend, “He can and He has and He will” can be your story, too.
Dream on, dear one. Oh, dream on!