What do you dream of when it’s quiet and no one’s around? What is churning deep down inside of you that you secretly hunger to do, accomplish, discover, change, or improve? What is it? To admit it is to take a step toward fulfilling it.
Every person has a purpose—a reason for existing. I know this is true because God says it’s true. Proverbs 1-4a puts it this way: The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs the motives. Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its own purpose…
You fit in the “everything” category. You were made for a specific purpose—a unique one that only you can fully accomplish. No one else in the word has been created like you, and no one can do what God has divinely equipped you to do. God declared this in Jeremiah 29:11: I know the plans that I have for you (meaning God has an ingenious plan and purpose for you).
Finding that purpose is essential if we ever hope to see our dreams fulfilled. The starting place is to take a long hard look at Jesus. Jesus is perfect theology. He is our perfect example. If we want to know what God can and will do through us—just look at Jesus. Jesus came to preach the gospel of the Kingdom (Luke 4:43), to die for our sins (John 12:27), and to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Our ultimate purpose is to imitate Jesus in an unimaginable variety of ways in proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and the destruction of Satan’s works.
We should understand the “what” (carrying on the work of Jesus), but it’s the “how” many of us struggle with. The “how” for each of us is different—we are all ministers, but ministry is not cookie-cutter. By that, I mean ministry does not have to be done the same way by every person.
God has a specific way—a dream buried deep inside you—for you to do ministry. He has hard-wired you for it. It’s about doing the one thing you can do that no one else can do as well. It might be developing a new business system, building a software system, designing an agricultural tool for third world farmers, developing a strategy for re-training the unemployed, a new concept for the funding of low cost housing, new communication tools for kids who struggle with learning disabilities, becoming an advocate for the homeless, writing a book to pull back the veil on some inequity or hidden wrong, helping prisoners re-enter society, running for public office to change the direction of a city, county, state or nation. You can fill in the blank because this list is endless.
There is a dream hiding deep within you. You may not even know what it is yourself, but it’s there just the same. God put it there and He designed you to fulfill it. Maybe you just need some encouragement and a little direction as you locate it. If so, join me over the next few weeks as we learn how dream God-sized dreams once again.