I saw a preacher saying something along the lines of: poverty steals vision and dreams because people are concerned about putting food on the table. Dreams and visions are sacrificed for the sake of eating.
And when you think of our lives in terms of being stationed on earth to fulfill a purpose, the weight of the sacrifice that many people are forced to make is heavy. The dreams we surrender so that we can just get by. The vision that never becomes reality because the weight of the world is against your every attempt to produce something meaningful.
There was a time in life where I used to dream of impossible things. Things that, even at that time I didn’t know what kind of job I’d need to have those things. But I was always sure that God, who can do impossible things, can do it. And although there was always a monetary value to everything I wanted, the fact that I believed in its possibility when I could not even fathom what job would afford me such a salary to make it possible is what I’m thinking about now. However, life has a way of making you look at these things and scatter your own dreams. Because when the reality of everyday life settles into your spirit, you literally reject possibility. You can’t see beyond what you have, and what you don’t have dictates your dream. It may permit you to imagine a good thing—like winning the lottery and what you’d do with the winnings—but 1) you don’t buy tickets and 2) inwardly you know that the likelihood of you ever winning is nonexistent. So, it’s just in the realm of fantasy.
We tell each other to dream big, but a lot of our dreams and visions die in the presence of disappointment.
I’m 33 now, and what I dreamt I would have accomplished by now has not yet materialized. The weight of it threatens my faith, and my desire to persevere and war for the vision. The weight threatens faith in myself, faith in the God I believe in, and makes me question my own mentality. The evidence of disappointment keeps piling up. And at one point it’s the reason that I gave up thinking big, dreaming big. It felt like I’d been floating on a fantasy cloud, so I leaped off to walk on the stony, rational ground. But it was after our church corporate fast a few years ago that out of nowhere, I heard God say “dream again,” that I slowly began offering myself the possibility that I once did. Slowly but surely, I began to accept that the “how” doesn’t matter, but I just have to see it, and believe it. That the time-frame doesn’t matter, but that if I want it, I have to believe and hold on to that vision for dear life.
And that’s the thing about vision. Vision cannot be tied to circumstance. We often hear that your vision has to be greater than your bank account. But outside of money, vision has to tap into that god-part of you, that aspect of yourself that is like God who calls those things which are not as though they were. You don’t consider how/when/where. It just is. You see it, you experience it. It’s not tied to a person or group of people that you “need.” It’s not tied to a season or time, or an opportunity, a job, or a company. You create with your blank cheque, writing the vision down, making it plain, so that the herald may run with it. The vision will be for an appointed time.
There’s a scripture that says God has put eternity into our hearts. I see that phrase to mean that we are to float within that realm of eternity, of great possibilities. We were crated to live eternally. Endless possibility is in our spiritual DNA. We were created to reflect the limitlessness of God our Father. We who are in Christ will not taste death; and I think we have to begin tapping into that eternity mindset to align with our day-to-day life so that we do what God has assigned us. The vision is bigger than just houses and cars and yachts and things. If it’s given by God, you must help it endure lack, disappointment, hardship, and time. It must not be exchanged for relief or for comfort.
And that’s going to require sacrifice. It’s not just a sacrifice of your time, of your finances, of your attention. You have to inwardly sacrifice fear, and rationality, and self-imposed limitations, over and over again. And that may seem easy, but these things can be a comfort and a shield from the hurt and disappointment that are inevitable in your pursuit to execute the vision.
I wrote something in my journal a few months ago, encouraging myself to have faith. I, too, need to stop picking up fear and operate in that eternity of which I speak. The vision is already there. The pull of faith and fear have not been easy to navigate, but as I write this, I think that I have to change how I’ve been thinking about the vision. God is the river who supplies the solution, the help, the means. I have to arise and show myself committed to the road, and he will send help. I remember a preacher saying that we have to sincerely seek the kingdom, because the things that we are chasing after, when we seek the kingdom, those things will chase after us. Be committed to the vision that God has given, no matter the cost. The bread of life will give you bread, and food to eat.
