LEARNING HOW TO DREAM AGAIN

It's surprisingly easy to lose your sense of "wow" for your life. It's easy to let the art of dreaming with God slip through your fingers. 

To do lists take the place of creativity and paying bills takes the place of imagination. Reservation and fear overcrowds all sense of trust in our heart, and self-preservation takes preference over asking God, "What's next?"

How do we so easily slip into that? How do we let our hearts become hardened to risk and dreaming? 

Dreaming with God is a habit. And like any good habit, it's easy to slip out of.

Here are three areas in your relationship with God that have a huge impact on how much you dream with God. They're good indicators of your relationship with Him. 

Check it out and ask Him to ignite each area of your relationship with Him according to His will.

1. TRUST

Without trust relationships don't work. If you don't trust someone, you won't be vulnerable with them- you won't let them into your fears and small delights. Trusting God in a relationship is very different than trusting a human, because He's always right. Always good. Always watching out for us. So you'd think that would calm us down, right?

Nope.

Trusting God can be hard. You know why? 

Because your relationship with God is the one relationship where you are promised to be stretched constantly and grow constantly. Oh, there's joy. But our god is not a settler. He doesn't let us settle for boring or easy or comfortable lives. He always challenges us to go to new places. He's not going to leave us alone to sit in our filth and boringness.

To live the life He calls us into, we have to trust Him with our whole hearts.

Where have you struggled trusting Him lately?

Is there an area of your life that you have made off limits to Him?

What opportunities and ideas and goals have you forfeited because you didn't trust God to make it work or show you what to do?

How is He asking you to trust Him now and move forward?

Ask Him. That conversation is worth having with Him. Again and again. Daily or minutely. 

Do it.

2. JOY / ADVENTURE

Any healthy relationship has joy. Have you lost your joy in your relationship with God? Have you forgotten the joy of dreaming with Him?

Well, good news. He can give it back. God makes joy happen.

Depression often sets in when we don't make the choice to joyfully enter into what God has provided for us. He has prepared abundant life for us and promises us good- we just have to choose to enter into it and trust Him to help us navigate every step of the way.

Has fear robbed your joy?

What would you do if you weren't afraid?

What joyful adventure in life with God have you missed because you were too afraid?

What brings you joy? (If you can't answer that, ask God to give you ideas and bring up things you enjoy. Ask Him to restore it. He can do it.)

3. GROWTH

A relationship with God is never stagnant. He calls us to dream and always builds us up to be more like Christ.

What a blessing that we have Him to challenge us! He is unmatchable in His desire for us to grow and become the people He made us to be- operating fully as people who bear His image. He made us great. What a blessing. 

And He's constantly helping us be more like Him. What a promise. I don't ever want to be stagnant in my character, not growing. 

It's a blessing to be stretched by God.

If you haven't been stretched in a while, maybe take some time to ask Him for bigger dreams. For something that requires growth and an opportunity for you to see His faithful character and see Him come through for you. He surely will. And you'll be blessed in the struggle. He promises.

Our God is a dreamer. He's faithful. For thousands of years He's been a dream giver and a dream fulfiller.

Dreams keep us close to Him. They increase our joy, strengthen our trust, and stretch us ridiculously beautifully.

Let's ask Him, "What's next?"