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Disappointment or Dreaming?

Why is the road to God’s prophecies always so painful? 

My wife and I (Brett) were recently discussing our own pain-filled journeys over the last few years, and our fears about whether the next season of pursuing God’s prophecies would be just as painful as the last. Then, right in the middle of discussing these fears, something clicked in my mind about how God works.

God had been teaching us for a while about how he interacts with his people, and how he leads them into their future. “I can’t just give my kids everything they ask for right away,” he told me one day, “even though I want to. It takes a lot of preparation to get them ready to receive my gifts. If I give them something they aren’t ready for, they won’t be able to handle it, and they’ll hurt themselves or others with my gifts.”

So he has to delay his promises, not to torture us, but to give us time to prepare. Like planting a seed, it takes a long time before the tree is ready to bear fruit. But does this mean we should just resign ourselves to years of agonizing disappointments before we ever see God’s promises fulfilled? No!

There are two different ways God can prepare our hearts:

1- God can invite us to pursue something he wants to do for us. Then, as we pursue this prophecy, through countless disappointments, doubts, and delays, our hearts mature to be strong, wise, and steadfast, and we learn, through lack, to appreciate this gift he has for us. Until, finally, we are prepared to receive the gift God has promised. Or,

2- We can learn to proactively dream with God about our future. We can invite him into the conversation and he can invite us into his plans. Then, as we discuss, design, and develop our desires together with God, our hearts become prepared for his gifts automatically.

Both of these methods will prepare our hearts for God’s gifts, so he will use whichever method we choose, but too often fear makes us choose the more painful option. God wants to be close with us, to treat us as his children, to dream and prepare for our future together. We, however, keep God at a fearful distance, treat him as a master instead of a father, and resign ourselves to having our plans interrupted by “orders from on high.”

This is how I have lived for years, and it never ends well. At best, I begin to view God’s promises with an only halfhearted hope, thinking mostly of the inevitable pain ahead, or, at worst, I end up resenting God for the pain, thinking he could fulfill his promises in an instant if he wanted to, and is choosing to delay for no reason.

But God has so much better than this in mind for us. He wants to give us amazing gifts, and he wants the journey to these gifts to give us immense joy and to bring him and us closer together. But, as a loving father, he honors our decisions, and when we relegate him to his throne, instead of inviting him to our table, we leave him no other choice.

But what if we didn’t do that? How amazing could our lives be if we let God sit at our table? If we treated him as a father and dreamt together about our future? Perhaps, instead of a lifetime of disappointment, we could learn to dream.

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