Glory Seed Devotionals, 2016: Year of the Blessing
There are dreams and there are DREAMS…
Shalom!
I have a question for you to consider. It’s a question which for the most part has no real answer. Yet for me the answer is an absolute must because it will help shape my tomorrows (and maybe yours as well). Are you ready? Where do our dreams go when they die? There are those who will say, “That’s about the dumbest question I’ve ever heard.” Before you find yourself siding with them let me explain what I mean by dreams.
I am not referring to the ones we have at night. Let me give you an example. Patti (my wife) and I in 1997 took a short vacation to Townsend, Tennessee nestled in the Smoky Mountains and immediately fell in love with it and began dreaming of moving there after retirement. That dream kept us returning as often as we could a couple of times we even checked into buying property. I retired April 17, 2009 while I am not real sure but I think that was the day “cancer of the dream” began taking the life of our dream. And now as we prepare to return to our “dream place” in a couple of weeks I am haunted by the memories and plans Patti and I have made over the years and I ask, “Where do our dreams go when they die?”
From the distant “deep inside me” I experience the voice of God reassuring me our dreams have returned to Him and they are no longer the dreams and plans of what might be but the reality of what is. Please allow me to give you another perspective on some (not all) of our dreams such as the one I mentioned, they’re given us by God in order to help us navigate through some of the most difficult times of our lives. They keep hope alive for us until such time as the difficult times have passed and then God tells us, “They were my plans all along, ‘…They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” (Jeremiah 29:11, NLT)
I am sure my perspective on dreams will not resonate with everyone but there those out there who are going through very difficult times right now who are looking for something to hold on to until the difficulty passes and that something may just be their God given dreams.
Today Townsend and the Smoky Mountain are no longer a dream of retirement but a Retreat Center for us. By the way, my latest God given dream? The dream of riding my bike again, the difficulty? Pulmonary Fibrosis and a troubled heart. Dream on Gary, dream on hope lives.
Believe in presence of the GOD and in the strength of his GRACE!
GRACE and PEACE,
Gary
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“Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.”
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