Month: February 2017

What is your dream?

In my granddaughter’s favorite movie there is a song about having a dream that is sung by the lovable hoodlums in the Snuggly Duckling. These miscreants confess in the song that they all, in spite of appearances to the contrary, have a dream. Most of us remember having some outrageous child or youthful fantasy, unfortunately too often “life” can get in the way of fulfilling our dreams.

It is good to know that God is in favor of dreams, not just daydreams but really BIG dreams. Like Joseph, who dreamed that everyone his world was one day going to bow down before him. Abraham was going to be the great granddaddy of an entire people group, and he had no kids, and the Mrs. was no spring chicken. And Moses! So, he was somehow going to get an entire slave nation freed, from the country where his picture had been on the post office walls as Egypt’s most wanted man. Gideon was supposed to deliver his people from an occupying army but was hiding out in the grape-stomping vat when the dream arrived. Even Mary, every girl dreamed of giving birth to the Messiah.

There is this pattern that seems to run through scripture.

God gives someone a dream. Usually something bigger than they could ever imagine on their own.

There is a death to the dream. Circumstances, physical limitations, resources come together to kill the dream. Or at the very least make it humanly impossible.

Then there is a supernatural fulfillment of the dream. The person doesn’t accomplish the impossible themselves. God accomplishes the impossible through the person.

Abraham gets these astounding promises for innumerable offspring, but then Sarah goes through menopause, hot flashes, mood swings the whole thing. The dream is so dead that they laugh when God brings up the subject in a special live appearance. But still little Isaac (aka. Chuckles) does arrive.

Joseph, lost in a multitude of brothers, dreams he is going to be in charge someday. Then he goes as low as he could go, to the dungeon as a convicted sex offender where only he knew the charges were false. Within one day, God resurrects his dream and blasts him from the bottom rung to the second to the top on the corporate ladder. Talk about culture shock!

Moses had retreated so far from his dream after he became a wanted man, that even after God gives him his own personal pyrotechnic and snake show; he still tries to talk God out of it. After his first day on the job, everyone wanted to get rid of him. However, God was getting ready to very supernaturally fulfill the dream he had given Moses to lead the people to freedom!

To Gideon, God gave the dream of becoming a mighty warrior. Then instead of becoming the Commander in Chief of a superior fighting force, God sent nearly all of them away! Even in the enemies’ dreams, he was at best a loaf of barley bread. God wanted everyone to know He was the power behind the win.

Mary shared every young girl’s dream to become the mother of the Messiah. This dream was so big that God even sent heaven’s special announcer angel to proclaim it. If you don’t listen to Gabriel when he shows up you can end up speechless for months, just ask Zachariah. (Luke 1:19-20) Mary’s dream died many deaths, Joseph was going to divorce her; her community could stone her, then Jesus went off and did strange things and hung out with the wrong people, she even feared for His sanity. (Mark 3:21) Then she had to watch him die…

The most amazing supernatural resurrection of the DREAM did occur on the third day!

So where is your dream today?

Do you feel like Abraham, that you are too old? It may not seem that you even have the physical ability left to accomplish the dream God has given. Maybe you have tried to make your dream come true without God’s direction and are now dealing with those consequences as Abraham had to do

Is your dream in a prison of false accusation and misrepresentation like Joseph? Stay faithful in your daily grind, no matter how bad it got Joseph gave his best to every dirty job he was given. He is the epitome of being faithful in little God will make you ruler of much. (Matthew 25:21)

Is it impossible to get anyone else to believe in your dream? Even the people Moses was trying to help wanted to get rid of him when things got tougher. God gave Moses Aaron to go with him, but considering the sin Aaron led the people into later (golden calf) it might have been better if Moses had not insisted that he needed help. (Exodus 4:14)

What if like Gideon, you feel that God has sent away all the resources you need to accomplish your dream? Maybe God wants to show you that little is much when God is in it.

Maybe like Mary, you have fully believed the dream God has given, but with every passing year things have gotten harder to understand, and your heart is broken. It may be Good Friday in your soul, but hold on…Sunday is coming!

Supernatural fulfillments come in God’s time, when we do things His way, and are accomplished in such a way that He will get the glory! All He expects from us is faithful obedience to what we are called to do today.

Ask God what dreams He has given you that He is still waiting to accomplish. Are you being obedient and faithful in every “little, grimy” task God has assigned you? (Remember Joseph, in prison…) Have you been telling God that He did not provide you with enough “whatever” to accomplish the task? God knows when we are scared, and He will often give reassurance, just like He did for Gideon.

Don’t believe in the dream-

Believe in the all-powerful God who can bring supernatural fulfillment to the dreams He inspires for His glory!

Get your heart checked!

The first Friday in the month of February has been designated as “Wear Red” day to raise awareness of Women’s heart health issues. Apparently, heart disease is the number one killer of women. Several moves ago, don’t judge me, it’s how I remember the details of my life; I worked as a receptionist in a heart clinic. A few details have managed to remain in my memory regarding that experience.

First of all, if the patient is having chest pain they do not need an appointment with the cardiologist, which may not be possible to schedule for weeks, they need to go to the emergency room. STAT! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go to the emergency room!

The second thing that I remember about the heart is how closely it is tied to the patient’s emotional well-being. Nearly, every patient who had heart surgery struggled with depression following that experience.

Valentine’s Day will be celebrated next week, so there are hearts literally everywhere. When God wants to get my attention…well, He doesn’t let me escape the message.

So here it is, when was the last time you checked your heart? Having a physical heart checkup is not a bad idea for someone “my age”. The number of old classmates who have begun having heart issues is alarming. Y’all need to stop that!

However, this is more spiritual than physical. The question is, “Have I let my heart become hard?”

Did you know that the word “heart” is used over 800 times in the Bible? There is only one way to know the truth about the state of your heart, and that is to take it to God, the heavenly cardiologist. We lie to ourselves about ourselves. Jeremiah 17 says,

“9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

If you need a New Testament reference, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, “but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.”

When you say with the writer of Psalm 139: 23-24, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” It can become a painful procedure.

Throughout the scriptures, we see the dangers of hardening one’s heart. Pharaoh and others hardened their hearts toward God, and very bad things happened. But what if we feel our heart is soft toward God, but not toward another person? What if our experiences of being repeatedly hurt and wounded by someone leaves us feeling justified in hiding behind the callouses we have allowed to form toward them?

There is that annoyingly convicting verse. Matthew 25:40, “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,you did it to me.’” Or as James says, judgment is without mercy to those who have shown no mercy.

Wait a minute, if we don’t hate the person, if we can say with a sincere heart that we love them and forgive them, by the grace of God and an act of our will, isn’t that enough? Aren’t we justified in protecting ourselves from further harm by not allowing them to get close enough to our heart to hurt it again? ([i])

A hard heart cannot be wounded, it is tough, nothing gets through, rhinoceros hide.

A soft heart is vulnerable, can be wounded, bleeds easily.

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh

God! It’s like you are asking me to live with a continually broken heart! And the still small voice whispers back, “Like Mine.”   

Psalms 34:18, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Friends, who has your heart gotten hard toward? If you are willing to let Him, the heavenly heart surgeon will remove that heart of stone. It is painful, it doesn’t feel safe, and it may take some time to adjust to this new way of living.

Jesus job description in Isaiah says, “he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”.

Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You

[i] I know there are levels of toxic relationships where distance is a physical safety issue. God will have to give you the wisdom to protect yourself or your family in those situations.  That is not what I am referring to here.