When the Living God Breathes
Have you ever carried a dream for so long that is started to seem like an impossibility? I’ve been thinking about this because not too long ago a new friend asked me, “What have you been dreaming about?” The question landed on me in an unexpected way. I gave an answer, but it wasn’t really an answer. You know what I mean? I took that question to my next conversation with God because what I realized as I sat with it was that somewhere over the last few years I’ve forgotten how to dream. A few days later B and I were at dinner with the same friends, and the question came again, this time from someone else at the table. And over the next several weeks, God kept putting it in front of me over and over again.
As I sat with God and asked the Holy Spirit to speak to me in this area, I realized a few things. 1. I do have dreams, God-given dreams, that were buried. Pushed aside, forgotten, neglected. 2. There’s a difference between a God-dream and a good dream. 3. It’s not selfish to dream. I’m still digging in to these things. But, for now, friends, can we all agree that our God-dreams matter. There’s kingdom purpose deposited in every single one of us.
Dreams get buried for all kinds of reasons. Maybe we’re just too busy. Maybe we’ve forgotten how to dream because we haven’t been surrounded by the right people. Maybe we push our dreams aside because we’re afraid of disappointment, rejection, or failure, so we bury them in an effort to guard our hearts against the pain of these things. Maybe we’ve carried the weight of unrealized dreams for so long that it seems almost foolish to lean in. Anybody? Yeah, I get it.
But here’s the thing: When the living God breathes in you DEAD THINGS COME BACK TO LIFE.
Read that again and let it sink in.
That’s very essence of this Gospel we preach — we’ve been invited to move from death to life — in all things through Christ Jesus. The power of the Gospel is for the moment of salvation, but it’s for every moment after that, too. When you are in Christ, the same power that raised Him from the dead lives in you. God is awakening some things for this next season in me and in Brian through the power of the Holy Spirit that lives in us. And, if you belong to Jesus, He lives in you, too; and, He’ll do the same for you.
I love what the MSG paraphrase says in Romans 8. “It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life.”
Can I encourage you today? If you haven’t asked God what dreams He has for you, ask Him. If you’ve forgotten how to dream, ask the Holy Spirit to teach you how. If you need God to breathe on some things in your life and awaken some things in your life, invite Him to do that. There is purpose (kingdom-purpose) assigned to your life. God wants to use YOU to point people to Jesus. Be brave. Lean in. Imagine what might happen if we all did that?