“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” - Ephesians 3:20
If you are anything like me, dreaming is innate to who you are. As a little boy, dreaming is what drove my life forward. I grew up in a family that loved basketball. My dad was a basketball coach, and we loved the Kansas Jayhawks and Boston Celtics. As young as age five, I started to become a basketball junkie, watching as many games as I could!
But when I was eight years old, something profound happened to me. I remember it clearly. I was watching the Kansas Jayhawks play, and something entered my heart. A dream. It was a dream to wear the jersey of the Kansas Jayhawks. I set it in my heart that day, making a vow to myself that one day, I would be on the court that I was currently watching.
So, the journey began. I wouldn’t have had the language for it at the time, but my heart knew that if that dream was going to come to fruition, I was going to have to work harder than everyone else. When I say at eight years old, I began to be in the gym hours a day, seven days a week, I am not exaggerating. I became obsessed.
I remember a year into this passionate pursuit when I was in third grade, I got the gumption to tell my parents my dream. They saw I fell in love with basketball intensely; they just didn’t know why. We were at lunch, and I looked up at them, saying, “Someday, I am going to play basketball for the Kansas Jayhawks.” They both smiled. A few minutes later, my mom, with sincerity and love, looked at my dad and said, “You are going to tell him that isn’t going to happen, right?”
He turned toward her and said, “No, I am not. I believe in him; let him dream!” That day was either going to empower me or deflate me. The foolish belief of my dad lit a fire in my soul, empowering me to dream with radical faith. So many of us never embark on journeying toward a dream bigger than ourselves because we don’t have someone in our life sincerely saying, “I believe in you; go for it!”
Belief is one of the most powerful agents toward propelling people into their destiny. If you don’t surround yourself with people who provoke you to dream and empower you with faith, you will waste away your days playing it safe, never taking risks, and scratching the surface of fulfilling all God had planned for you.
You know the end of the story regarding the dream of Kansas basketball. My mom was right, but so was my dad. I never played for the Kansas Jayhawks, and on the surface, the dream failed. However, I have learned it wasn’t about the destination; it was about the journey. I thought the destination was for my own jersey to hang on the rafters in Allen Fieldhouse. God saw that the dream that was imparted into my heart was going to form and fashion me to be someone for him I could have never become otherwise. The journey developed intensity, perseverance, and determination into a little boy in a way nothing else would have.
Years later, at age 22, a baptism of fire and passion for something else was imparted into my heart. A new dream. A fire for Jesus and a desire to live a life that fulfilled all the pre-ordained purposes and plans God had for me. Intensity, perseverance, and determination weren’t imparted in a moment when I was 22. They were developed over a span of twelve years. I didn’t need to learn to be all in for something; I was trained in that my whole life. I just needed a trajectory shift, recognizing the destination wasn’t worldly but heavenly.
My dream wasn’t wasted, nor did it fail. My deepest desire wasn’t the rafters of KU; my deepest desire was to experience something beyond what I could imagine. Living a life of greatness, impact, influence, and legacy. Like me, you were created to be great. Having impact and influence that reverberates into an eternal legacy. God isn’t threatened by exalting you; in fact, when you walk humbly with him, he is elated by it.
This brings me to ask you, “Are you dreaming dreams destined to fail without divine intervention? Are you surrounding yourself with people who believe in you more than you do? Who exhort you into taking God-sized risks? People who don't squash your dreams with “reality” but enlarge your dreams with faith?”
God wants you to dream. Then he wants you to buckle up, moving past the inspiration of dreaming and into the perseverance of becoming. The gap between your dream realized and your dream becoming your reality is perseverance and intentionality. One of the main questions I ask myself regarding the dreams that dwell in my heart is, “Who do I need to become in order to responsibly steward the dream that is in my heart?” Because to be honest, if the dream I realized became my reality today, it would be short-lived.
So, I ask you the same question, “Who do you need to become to carry out this dream with the heart of God and the character of God? How can you start today? What new rhythms do you need to create in your life? What disciplines do you need to develop? What temporary pleasures do you need to get rid of that are worthless so that you can pursue eternal pleasures that are wonderful?”
Lastly, while our day of judgment isn’t dependent on another person, us fulfilling our purposes and plans on this earth are. Meaning you aren’t meant to journey this life alone. Anyone who has ever experienced living out a God-sized dream knows that the recipe to success is the covenantal partnership of laboring together with others. So, not only who do you need to become, but who do you need to surround yourself with? Who believes in you more than you believe in you? Stick with them. Partner with them. And believe in them believing in you, especially when you don’t!
