Friday, May 18, 2007

Dream Big Dreams!

Aaaaaaaaah! Perry Noble... a man after my own heart. I have copied a little of his post yesterday on dreams.

What is it that you want? OK…put THAT thought OUT of your mind…

What is it that God wants you to want? Is there a dream or desire in your life that is so huge that you can’t seem to shake it…but you also can’t seem to believe that it would ever happen?

God rocked my world this morning when I read I Chronicles 11:4-5, WOW!!! Basically David had became the king of Israel…but after becoming king he STILL had ambitions and dreams. (In other words–pastors, church leaders–our point of “arrival” is no where on this planet…as long as we are alive we need to pursue God sized dreams!)

SO…in this passage he goes after his dream–Jerusalem. (Yep, I definitely think God wanted him to pursue this!) The first thing he was told was, “You will never be able to do this.”

When we pursue God’s dreams–the first thing to happen is ALWAYS the naysayers who somehow find us and begin to tell us about all of the things that we cannot do!!! I know we had them at NewSpring when we first began…we were told our church would not work, that we would never be able to move into the Fine Arts Center at Anderson University, that we would never build a building, that I would never succeed as a pastor because I do not have a seminary degree…and the list could go on and on.BUT…I would not let go of the dream!!! It wasn’t something I could let go…it was a passion that God had placed inside of me. I see that in David in this text–even though he was told by a group of people that his dream could not take place–it didn’t stop him.

In verse five we see the dream accomplished…it worked. When we pursue God given dreams and inspirations with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength…GREAT THINGS HAPPEN... AND–he didn’t form a committee to study the problem! NO…he had a vision from God–and he pursued it.

If God TRULY places a dream and a passion inside of you–pursue it!!!

Well, you get the idea. (Link here to read his entire post (yes, it's quite a bit longer than this).
I really thought this way when I was in college and spoke often to teenage audiences about these kinds of things when I was competing in college and in my 20's. "Dream big dreams," I would say. The Bible says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" Ps. 37:4 It never occurred to me that one could use this type of thinking in building "The Churh."

It's so awesome to see pastors and visionary leaders reaching the lost with this same passion, and speaking about "dreaming big" all the time. It reminds us little guys that God wants to use us to do the same types of things if we would just step out in faith and dream big dreams like these crazy visionary pastors and our heroes in scripture.

2 comments:

The Atkinson 6 said...

I think it's awesome that Newspring is growing so rapidly and that Perry Noble seems to use all his time teaching and reaching people for God's kingdom!

Jane said...

the coooool part about Perry is that he does not pastor 24/7... he realizes that he is first a child of God, a husband, soon to be daddy, and a son to his father.... he loves to be the lead pastor at NS, but he also loves being a person and husband too! He sets the bar high for the guys and husbands in our church. Anderson is soooooo very blessed to have Perry.