His Dream is Deeper!
The Tit for Tat!
Setting her mind on the things of Heaven is one thing but setting her mind on doing what is His way is another thing all together. Leola is working on doing the right thing and has not been able to learn how to set her mind on lining up what she believes with what she needs to do. The struggle in her mind is how she has been used by people before to fulfill their goals without consideration for her goals. It is that whole tit for tat concept; you rub my back and I’ll rub yours. Those concepts are getting Leola nowhere in her life and her bitterness is definitely holding her back. She gave up on her dreams and packed it in because she was being used by so many people to accomplish their goals. Her goals were not being accomplished. She still worked hard for the Body of Christ but not toward the dream she had. She really had no goals for herself anymore which was ironic to her since she taught for years having goals is paramount in our life. What she didn’t understand was her goals need to be transformed into God’s goals. She is rewriting her goals.
Years ago, when God lead Leola to begin teaching life skills, she was very excited to do it. She is gifted with teaching and writing. This was going to be easy to accomplish. She would do fantastic at it and make millions in no time, goal set! Then, Hope Devoted Life Skills Center for Women would open its doors in Essex County with those millions, and women would flock from all over Canada to be trained, another goal set. Franchises would open in every province and women would flourish under the care of Hope Devoted, the perfect vision. Then, Leola discovered the truth. Just because she had the dream did not mean it was going to happen. There have been too many times she worked hard to get somewhere and someone else’s dream advanced instead of hers. She is going to throw in the towel because maybe she heard God wrong. Maybe the dream she had belongs to someone else and not her, taking into account she has seen so many people advance in teaching what she had been teaching for years. She is watching many people succeed in their ministries leaving her behind. It does look to her like she is not going in the right direction. She can see that people are hardly having to work and are successful but she is working hard to get nowhere. The sound of failure is ringing in her ears so loud she cannot hear anything else but God will remove the ringing and start reminding her the old dream is about to come alive again.
Have you ever questioned your directions because it doesn’t seem to be going in the direction you thought it would? For several years I have been questioning and losing verve over my direction. God has kept me going thankfully but I had lost hope in the old dream. I have been praying for someone else to pick it up and was okay with mentoring someone else to do it but at least I was hoping it would get done. I did get to the point of giving up on it! At that point my heart was truly broken because I wanted to do it so badly. I began to pray for a new goal. What am I going to do with my life? Just sit in my Jesus Room and read the Bible? Teach one woman the Bible weekly? Run a retreat for seven women bi-monthly? I’m okay with this but I need Jesus to remove the dream I had from before because it is killing me not to do it! Then, events started happening regarding the old dream because of new events taking place. John 14:26 started coming to life for me. All these years I had been taught by the Holy Spirit the new things I needed to know so the old things I already knew could take place. I cannot describe the moment I discovered this to be happening and I cannot today describe the feeling but I can describe the knowledge. Jesus said it and it will be! I know that more now than yesterday!
The Deep!
The ringing in her ears turns out to be the Holy Spirit blocking out any other dream she is dreaming up. She is by nature a dreamer and the Holy Spirit had to step in to stop the dreaming. His plan for her had to happen and He needed her to stop all fleshly dreaming and start conforming to His plan even thought she was convinced it was dead. He has been showing Leola the direction to go, she goes and then He reminds her of the time He told her this exact event would happen. How impossible it all seemed to her from over there, but now that she is here, she can begin to see it happening. She is not as giddy as she was when she was young because she is more mature now. It has all spun into joy rather than happiness. Happy was she to be able to help women when she was young but God has matured her into someone who now sees the joy and the sorrow with helping women become women of God. It is found deeper in her soul rather than more of a surface goal. The goal has to be number one outside of the surface emotions taking place. She needs to keep the goal at the front of her mind and do what needs to be done. It is hard for Leola to describe the feeling. She now knows how shallow and fluffy her emotions and her conviction to be successful were about this deep task she is about to embark on. The Lord could not have that, not for one second! When He sends her to accomplish this goal He needs to know she is committed to His goal for life! He has made His point! She will wait in the deep because that is the only place Jesus is!
I am convinced on this day just as yesterday and the years before God tells us from the beginning what His plan is for us. Thankfully He doesn’t tell us what we are going to go through to get to the deep point where He can actually use us for that task. Sometimes, like Gideon, His plan is quick but then there are others, like Joseph, whose plan is far off. Each one of us has the Holy Spirit living in us and directing our plan daily therefore we can be sure, if we are listening, that He will do what He said He will no matter how long it takes. The Spirit wants us to know that He is taking us through the ringer to get us to the dream He has planted deep in our soul because His dream is deeper than ours. This week get back in touch with that deep dream and live in it!
Meditation verses for this week: John 14:26; Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 3:16
