Following God isn’t typically a magical life where all your dreams come true. As you journey down this adventurous life with Christ by taking wild steps of faith, you will encounter many difficult seasons. It will often feel as if God is leading you to a dead end where all your dreams will die. I want to encourage you to endure. I know from experience how hard this can be, so I thought I’d share two personal stories about how God asked me to give up my dreams.
Before I start though, I wanted to clarify something. We can’t be certain God will fulfill any of our dreams. God does as he wills. We can’t be Christians because God will fulfill us. That’s just not how it works. Sometimes God does fulfill our dreams, but we are not Christians because of what we get out of it. We are Christians because we recognize that we are sinful people deserving of God’s wrath and that only through Christ’s loving act on the cross can we be saved from our sins and reunited with God. Our number one goal should be dwelling with God forever. This dream is promised for those who believe. But, God will let some of our other dreams die.
Dream #1: Living Near My Family
Even though two of my brothers got married by the time I graduated college, everyone lived within a twenty mile area. I love my family. I’m also a social person who I hates saying goodbye. Then God called me to the Middle East.
Though the commitment was only one year, I knew it could easily last longer. Leaving my family devastated me. I missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Easter with my family. I even missed my niece’s birth and watched my nephew grow up through facebook. One day a text message informed me of my sister’s engagement. Talk about FOMO.
I turned to God in tears one day and told him I wanted to go home and be with my family. God spoke to me in his typical gentle and loving tone: “Philip, do you love your family?”
“Yes,” I answered confused.
“Will you see your family in heaven?”
“Yes.”
“So, you have an eternity with your family?”
“I suppose.”
“Then can you please give up this short window of life with your family to be a vessel for me to reach out to my family, whom I’ve loved since the beginning of time. They’ve separated themselves from me and I won’t get an eternity with them. Will you join with me to help change that so I can be with the people I love forever.”
So yes, God didn’t fulfill this dream, but he was still good and caring. Even though God called me away from my family for two years, he gave me one year back with my family before calling me away again. Even so, that one year I got with my family was the last year before half of my siblings moved away. God is good and loving. He worked out the timing to give me another year of my dream before the dream became impossible.
Dream #2: Working as a Counselor at a Christian Summer Camp
I went to a summer camp in 7th grade and absolutely loved it. I’ve wanted to work as a counselor ever since then. Between my Junior and Senior year of college an opportunity opened up for me to work at a summer camp. I knew this was my last chance. I knew I’d have to find a job after graduation that would make working at a camp too difficult.
However, my dad didn’t want me to work at the summer camp. Since I was still living at home during my time in college, I knew honoring my father at this time in my life meant obeying him. If God wanted me to work at the camp, He’d have to change my dad’s mind. But, God didn’t.
I trusted God and stuck with honoring my dad. As far as I knew, I had to let this dream die. I knew this dream was gone forever, and I was okay with that because I trusted God had a reason.
Four years later, I was back in the US interning for the college group I’d served with as a student. My internship ended that summer and I already had a new ministry job lined up to start right as it ended. That’s when I got an email from the summer camp I had hoped to work with before. Somehow the summer camp knew the campus ministry director I was working with. He asked the director to send out an email asking if any of us staff knew students who might be interested in working as a summer counselor at their camp.
I read this email, saved it, and prayed “God, you know I’ve had this dream. Please make it possible for me to revive this dead dream of mine.”
I knew the only way I could do it was if the new ministry I was joining would allow me to work at the summer camp while on staff with their ministry. They said it was okay, and I praised God.
Even after letting this dream die, God had it all planned out. And for good reason too. Conveniently, I met my girlfriend that year at camp. God had this all planned out when he first asked me to let this dream die. Even while I was pleading with God to change my dad’s mind the first time, God probably wished he could tell me, “Not now, but just wait four years.” For some reason he didn’t tell me this. I personally believe this is because he probably wanted to surprise me.
God is Good even When He lets Our Dreams Die
The truth is, God is good. Even when it is hard or doesn’t make sense, we can trust him. He has a reason for what he does. Looking back, I’ve never once regretted following God and letting some of my dreams die. With every passing trial, I learn to trust him more and more. What a great God.
What about you? Do you have any stories of how God asked you to let one of your dreams die?
If you are having a hard time trusting God with you dreams, check out my blog Five Reasons Why You can Trust God with Your Dreams
