Chasing Dreams

Today is kind of a big day for me. A friend of mine writes a blog and was recently reviewing the book The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkenson. After reading the book, he was inspired to give his readers the opportunity to guest-blog and share about their dreams. He wants to feature someone every Friday who is pursuing their dreams. Today, he's posted my story.

When I received his email asking to use my submission, I was pretty excited. I knew he had a pretty good reader base and was thinking how cool it was to think a few hundred people could potentially read my writing. Last night I was curious and checked how many followers he had on Twitter to try and gauge just how many readers would have access to my writing. His number almost made me fall off my couch! He has almost 16,000 followers! That means there are that many people who could read about my dream. There are that many people who could either choose to encourage me in that dream or tell me I'm insane. Suddenly I began feeling very vulnerable.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you done something you know beyond a shadow of a doubt is the right thing to do, and then felt "exposed" after you made your decision? It's hard to step out of the ordinary. It's intimidating to be bold in taking action for Christ. You know the minute you do, you are marking yourself as a target for the enemy. At the same time, it's almost an euphoric feeling that comes with it. It's the feeling of knowing you are now starting to live. You start to realize you are doing exactly what God created you for. You aren't doing what your parents or your society expects of you, you are doing what God expects of you.

""He said, 'That's what I mean: Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of. Play it safe and end up holding the bag. " Luke 19:26 (MSG)

I don't know about you, but I don't want to play it safe anymore. I don't want to stand at the end of my life "holding the bag." What's in that bag? I imagine it's all the dreams and blessings God wants to lavish on me. However, the only way to truly receive the blessing He has for us is to risk OUR lives. It means trading OUR life plans for the plans HE has for us. What is the dream you have been holding back on? What is the vision He has shown you, but because of the world's opinion or the failures in your past, you have not pursued? Don't end up holding the bag.




**Here is the link to my guest blog post: http://www.facebook.com/l/c4df554ZwFNfV-SaT4yhFWK_mWA;www.liveintentionally.org/2011/01/14/not-my-big-dream-but-his/comment-page-1/#comment-24317