The Problem With Dreaming Big

I’m naturally a dreamer.  I love to incubate big ideas in my mind and am motivated by the tension and excitement of – is this even possible?

It’s alluring, isn’t it?

That’s why we love makeover shows when they completely restore a home or re-fashion a wardrobe.  The transformation from humble beginnings to something extraordinary, something we never even thought possible, is fascinating.

And I like to think God put that longing there.

From the beginning of time God has been in the business of blowing minds.  This creation of His is pretty over the top.  Do a quick Google search and you will learn scientists believe there are somewhere between 2 and 30 million different species of insects on this earth.  2-30 million. Insects alone. That’s a pretty broad estimate, but still, guess low and my mind is still blown.  I can’t even wrap my brain around this creation of His.

Just a little deeper into Genesis we see God whisper to Abram – a man who is without an heir, a man anguished by the fact that his wife is unable to bear his offspring – God tells him this. “Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them…So shall your descendants be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Millions of insects. Offspring as numerous as the stars.  God was the original big thinker. No?

And yet somewhere in my big thinking there is a risk.  There is a problem with dreaming big: Control.

I see big ideas, I think through them and I want to make them happen.  Now.  I’m a hard worker and I’m capable.  I’m motivated and determined and I sometimes forget that my dreams need to align with His will. His timing. His plan.

Ever feel that?

I was struck recently as I was reading Acts chapter 7.  Stephen, not long before he was martyred, stands before the high priests and recites the story of the Old Testament.  Remember, this is the scripture Stephen would have studied and meditated on, occurring well over a thousand years before his time.  As he recites the story of Moses’ birth and early life as an Egyptian prince he gets to the part where Moses kills an Egyptian (from Exodus 2:12) and says this – For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.

Notice anything there?  Long before the burning bush, Moses had the notion that he would have a role in God’s plan to deliver the Israelites from captivity.  Hold the phone!  I had never caught that before.

This idea wasn’t something new at the burning bush.  Moses felt that big crazy dream early on.  He knew he lived a privileged life, a Hebrew raised as an Egyptian prince.  He saw the cruelty of the his people, the Israelites, being treated as slaves.  And he felt the pull, he felt that God would use him to deliver His people.

However, Moses, grasping the bigger plan, usurped his position.  He usurped God’s timing and sought and killed an Egyptian.

You know the rest of the story.  Moses fled.  He ran to Midian and God spoke to him via a burning bush 40 years later.  Forty years later.  Don’t rush past that.

You see, God is the author of big dreams.  He plants them in our hearts just as Stephen said of Moses, “… it came into his heart.” (Acts 7:23).  But it is our job to hand those dreams back to God, to submit them over to His timing.

We aren’t made to take the bull by the horns and start slaying Egyptians, friends.

Honestly, sometimes I want to.

I love writing here.  God is planting seeds in me.  He is growing ideas and dreams and confidence and if writing a little is good, writing a lot must be better, no?  I feel the pull of more.  I see what other people are doing and think I can probably muscle that out too.  Get up a little earlier, write a little more, start writing a book, slay an Egyptian or two and get this show on the road.

But that is not what He has called me to right now.  He has called me to be faithful, right where I am.  He has called me to keep dreaming, keep following, keep listening and keep working, but to lay those big dreams down at His feet and wait for His timing. He is calling me to trust him with all of it.  Just like he did Abram.  Just like He did Moses.

We’re not just called to read about it, write about it, or talk about it.  We are called to believe it and live it.

I’m not sure where you are with your big, crazy dreams, friends, but I sure hope you are still dreaming.  And, even more, I hope you are bravely offering them up to be used by Him and for Him, in His perfect timing.

Dreaming big right along with you.