“The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet and makes me walk on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:19).
One lesson the Spirit taught me was that our Father gives us dreams, not to frustrate us, but to inspire us. We don’t need to make them happen, He wants those dreams fulfilled and we can trust Him to open a way for us to walk in the things He’s called us to. In pursuing our dreams, there are two extremes we do well to avoid. The first is to think that it all depends on us, that our choices will get us there and so we need to make it happen. The second is to believe that God will make it happen regardless of our choices.
At one stage, we were stuck in Kathmandu, frustrated by the weather closing down Lukla airport (a crazy little strip of tarmac on a mountainside!). We’d wasted a day trying to fly out and the second day wasn’t looking promising. I went to bed anxious that our dream would be frustrated. The next morning our guide told us that if we didn’t fly out that day, we should change our plans and head to a different region. Our flight wasn’t till the afternoon and it was normal for afternoon flights to be cancelled… my dream was disappearing. Then we met a man who offered us a helicopter flight for just £200 more each. One of my companions was up for paying the extra, and the other said they couldn’t afford it. As leader of the trip, I was given responsibility for making the decision. In that moment, I had clarity that I wasn’t to make the dream happen but to trust God. So I let go of my dream and said “no” to the helicopter flight. It didn’t feel good; I might not get another chance, but within two minutes there was a commotion at the check-in desk, we were suddenly booked on an earlier plane and flying within an hour. Lesson learned and the dream was back on!
This is one of the first lessons God taught humanity. He gave Abraham a dream that he would lead a new tribe unlike any other on earth, a tribe that would be a light to the world, that would exist to bless every other tribe. God told him to leave his homeland and showed him the land He would give to this tribe, a land of abundant blessing. He told Abraham to walk the length and breadth of it and know it would be his. Abraham was obedient and also worked to build an inheritance for his descendants. There was just one problem: he had no children and his wife was past child-bearing age. Abraham & Sarah did what many of us are tempted to, they tried to make God’s promise come true through their own efforts. Sarah gave Abraham her maid, Hagar, and she had a son called Ishmael. However, this caused family tension and the world has been living with the consequences ever since.
God has given River a dream that we are to be a resource church, a blessing to other churches and nations. We are called to walk into that destiny, to embrace it, but not to make it happen at any cost. So we celebrate the success of Ignite (that had a source in River) attracting over 300 students nationwide and we thank God for local churches linking with us, but we do not seek to promote ourselves or to build a name for ourselves. Rather we look to God to open a way for River to walk in all that He’s promised, and simply seek to enjoy serving churches and communities in whatever way we can.
What dreams has our Heavenly Father given you? What high places are you called to? Be still and know that He is God, embrace the dream, prepare for it, but know that He will open the way for those dreams to become reality.
