This is the first post in ages that i'm not including any type of visual stimulation. Can you deal with it or will the text only be so unnatractive that people won't bear to read it?
Christmas was busy but lovely. We got caught up with the family and friends and then headed to London to catch up with more friends and attend a great wedding. I was pleased to be asked to take photographs at the wedding. It's something i'd imagined looking into in the future. Most of it was fun. Being creative, giving people memories of their day to look at and enjoy was a great feeling. However, group photographs are hard work. Respect to wedding photographers, the most patient people on earth.
As January has kicked in ... with dark nights and not much going on, i have had lots of time to think. The low feelings of damp, cold weather probably haven't helped either.
Anyway, what i'm about to say is meant to bless and encourage and not to discourage.
I know lots of people who have big dreams, good dreams, visions maybe even. These ideas, projects have blessing and extending God's kingdom right at the centre of them. The people know exactly what they want to do, who they need to help them, where they need to be, how much cash is needed etc. How many people actually 100% fulfil what God has given them ideas for? Very few and many of those who do, end up flying around the world in jets oblivious to the real needs of people. What? I'm saying that it seems to me, looking around that God takes people someway down the path of their big dream ... they get so close to fulfilment. They get the right property, they get the right people, the money is coming in, it feels nice. Then just when it seems that all with be fulfilled it slowly unravels? This is not about any certain project but about many.
Am i talking rubbish? maybe but this is what i see. Why does this happen. Why does God allow the frustrations, the disappointment, the misunderstandings? To teach us to rely on Him? to teach us to be patient? so that we don't get lazy and have it all our own way? I'm not even sure.
One thing i do know is that along the way to visionaries trying to accomplish their outcome, many people get a glimpse of Jesus along the way, many people are given purpose for their lives, many people come into the kingdom and the visionaries learn to keep going, keep looking to God and keep serving in any way they can.
I'm not a visionary type person and i'm more of a leader's right hand man than a leader but looking back on my own short life so far, when i've had dreams, when i've had plans, when i've had ideas, i push towards them, i try the door but very often (in hindsight of course), God gently leads through another path another direction, one which i couldn't even have imagined He'd take me.
Don't give up, keep reaching forward. God leads and God steers.
Friday, January 11, 2008
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14 comments:
Ok there were no pictures and so i skim read it - but is an an upshot of what your saying that God needs to play games to keep us motivated and close to him...?
Great to see the Underground getting a grant for half a mil.
thanks dave. my dreams are somewhere - i had them once and they've rather been shrouded in cloud for the past while. nice encouragement.
in answer to Pete the lad ... i don't know, i doubt it but just maybe?
Good blog, Dave ... to use a term you will be familiar with ... as Christians we need to keep our eye on the ball! Hebrews 12: 1-3 is a brilliant encouragement to start the yer with ... it's titled in 'The Message' "Discipline in a Long-Distance Race" ... it may be long, I thought it was worth putting it out there ...
"Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!" ... the ultimate 'high'.
Dave - love this blog and have to wonder if along the way, our dream/vision gets clouded by Gods'. it's a question I asked myself until I realised that God does it all anyway without to much hinderance that I throw in! yes the witnesses provide us with help and yes we need it but do we ask the question enough - is this from God?? And thanks for being a right hand man! Us dreameers need the reality checks from people like you!!!
I think I see from my own life that visions from God are His, that's why we never fully grasp them and down the line, looking back, they are unrecognisable compared to how we had them planned. Why? "My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts" I don't think God gives us visions like building plans are handed to a contracter. But that's the attitude we often recieve them in. No wonder confusion comes as two very different plans try and build the same house.
I say...less planning with the flesh, more prompting by the Spirit.
P.s Check out my response to your Blues bashing on my blog! ;)
Hi Dave,
Thanks so much for the honest blog. It's very frustrating living with a clear dream but struggling to see it ever come to fruition in reality.
When it's a God dream, even if you never see it come to fruition fully, it's still worth living and dying for. Hard though.
Thanks for encouraging me on a dull January day!
Dave, great post.
I think so often when we have our 'vision' or calling it can get messed up with our needs and wants of that given time in our life.
It is still God's vision for us but it just got a bit mangled by us. He allows us to bring Him down a tangent in order to equip us and remove the cataracts from our eyes so we can see clearly again.
He knows all our 'alternative' paths but our destination remains the same.
I still have a long way to go in this particular area and a lot to learn so I could be wrong but thats my thoughts for what it's worth.
You are so popular man. You only need to right a few words and everyone is buzzing. Are you really a Rabbi? I am freezing in Canada and glad that my dreams don't involve being an international preacher man, I can't handle plane food, it repeats on me for days and jet lag takes control of my whole body.
Oh, the blog! I get what you are saying. It is hard to really fulfil all the dreams and plans that you have. Some people do, but then, they need to find something else to do, ie Mr Virgin. But why not look at it the other way.. isn't it class that God forms us and shapes us in such a way that we have dreams and vision, passions and hopes and wide and varied these can be? I am a dreamer, and I would say less that 10% of the dreams and visions I have ever become anything more than that, but would it be worse if I decided that based on those statistics I should stop dreaming! I have been disillusioned in my dreaming for the best part of three months, it is as if there is nothing coming, the channel is blocked or something, what has happened. Well a close examination of my devotional life explains all. Almost the moment I begin to read scripture and pray again I find myself reconnected with vision, hopes and dreams. And what is really cool, is how when the waters run still, God brings other dreamers into your life to stir up the well again.
I can definately see that you are a right hand man, u need a new job? but u are also a pioneer, challenging an emerging generation into a different way of thinking and living.. and even shopping.
Later Bro
look this is the "diet" i told you about you should really enter the site :) bye enter the site
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