Broken Dreams

 Has your dream died? Maybe all your dreams have died. How do you reconcile that with a good and loving God? A God we're told has a "wonderful plan for our lives." How can dead dreams fit into that promise? Could it be that it comes to just what our dream is all about?

I love Psalm 37:5. "Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." It has been a life verse for me. I've preached it, taught it, and prayed it. Yet as I claim this promise I also learn the great depth that it holds, and how easily we miss that. At first glance it would seem that all I need to do is to give Him my way and He'll bring about the desired result for my way. Isn't that what it says, or does it?

I continue to learn that if I commit my way to Him, it is no longer my way. It's His. It's owned by Him. Controlled by Him. He's the Lord of it and I'm not. I'm told to trust Him with it. Author Larry Crabb asks, "If we're trusting Him, we must ask, 'For what?' " Most of us have taken this promise and made it very much about our way. We loan it to Him but with the understanding that He will do things and work things that are in agreement with what we think our way should be. He will bring to pass the results that we desire. When we do this, we fall into what Crabb says is the next step; disillusionment. That's not a bad thing. To be disillusioned means we've been set free from the illusion, and believing that the Father will lead us into anything but His best is certainly an illusion. We're willing to settle for what's good. He means for us to enter into His best, even though the journey often doesn't look like it. 

In the Gospel of John, the first words Jesus speaks are, "What do you want?" We want a lot of things, but how deeply have we thought about His question? We want good things. Good marriages, children, jobs, and ministries. Yet for so many, those dreams are broken, never realized. We gave them to Him, we trusted Him, where is He? Why didn't He come through for us? We've seen Him do these things for others, why not us? What's wrong with Him? What's wrong with us?

We need to go back to Crabb's question. What are we trusting Him for? Do we really desire His best? Job said, "Though He slay me, I will trust Him." That's radical trust. In the midst of his pain, disappointment, disillusionment, and loss, He would believe God for who He said He was, and would be, regardless of the dead dream. The Father meant for Job to realize that He was to be His dream. He desires that He be ours as well. In His goodness, He gives so many good things, but He never promised to give us everything. Yet He has promised to give us all of Himself. The good things we want so badly are passing away. He desires that we have His best, Himself. Being one with Himself. In the midst of our broken dreams, He's there, inviting us to come and experience Him, know Him. The gift of Himself. A gift that stretches through all eternity. 

I don't know why He allowed your cherished dream to die or mine, but I do know that for us He has a greater one. If we'll trust Him, He'll bring it to pass. It won't resemble what our original dream was, but once we've laid hold of it, of Him, we'll never let go. Believe Him, trust Him, lay hold of Him. Out of your dead broken dreams will come His dream, and His dream will be infinitely greater than any of ours. Don't miss it. It only grows more beautiful.

Blessings,
Pastor O