Dreaming Big

This happens from time to time.  I’m sitting here at almost 2:00 AM and even though I’m tired, I can’t make myself go to sleep.  I have too much on my mind.  You see, I was recently given the opportunity to preach at my home church, Crossroads Christian Church in Gray, TN.  It had been almost a year since I had gotten to preach anywhere.  It was so refreshing to get to preach God’s word again.  I had almost forgotten how much I really enjoy and feel called to preach.  It is one of my greatest passions.  With this reminder, I have now started getting the itch to start actively looking for wherever God is sending my wife and I next.  It’s time to be in a full-time ministry somewhere.  Along with all of this, I started reading a new book earlier tonight.  Wide Awake, written by Erwin McManus has already started to make me think about some heavy thoughts.  I’m just a couple of chapters into the book, but the basic premise seems to be that we aren’t believing in God enough to allow ourselves to dream big about what we can do in our lives.  God is asking us what we would like, and we don’t have enough faith to ask for something grand.  Now, McManus is not talking about material wealth here.  He is talking about dreaming big with what we can do for God in our lives when we trust Him enough to just ask for something huge.

So all of this has got me thinking, and I can’t get my mind to shut off.  It has got me thinking about what I would like to be able to do with my life, where I would like to end up.  Man, do I have some big dreams.  Now, I’m just beginning to believe that maybe I can actually achieve some of them.  I can only reach them by trusting God.  What are my dreams?  Where do I want my life to end up?  Am I stuck where I’m at right now because I’ve been too scared to trust God?  It’s kind of  scary to start actually trying to answer these questions.  I think I have been too scared to trust God because I was questioning whether or not I would ever be able to succeed in a ministry position.  It’s also scary to start allowing myself to really start believing I may be able to reach my dreams.  I want to preach.  I want to preach to as many people as I can and the sky is the limit on this.  The more people who I have the opportunity to speak in front of at a time, the more confident I am.  I dream of being the preaching minister at a local church, preferably in the South, but also getting to speak across the country.

Do I dare dream of such lofty goals?  Well, I am laying this all at God’s feet.  I’m trusting Him.  I don’t want to speak all across the country because I want to be famous.  I really have no desire for  people know my name, but I dream of the opportunity to help lead as many to Christ as I can.  I also dream of writing one day, even one day in the near future.  I love blogging, even though I don’t get to do it very much.  But I really want to write a book.  I have a great idea and I’m allowing myself to dream of the day that I can write to help youth workers.  There are so many other things that I have dreams about being able to do in my life.  I’m excited to see where God is leading.  I’m sure Kelley and I are in for a wild ride, but we’re dreaming!