God-sized Dreams

Where Dreams Set Sail

9 Takeaways about God-Sized Dreams

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Takeaways from the book You're Made for a God-Sized Dream by Holley Gerth

Today, we’re wrapping up our book study of You’re Made for a God-Sized Dream, by Holley Gerth. This is the book that started it all for our group. Ironically, I was a few months into participating in this ministry when I realized the book existed!

It’s been convicting and encouraging to read along with everyone.

Here are the highlights I’ve learned along the way:

The More You’re Made For

So many lies keep us from dreaming. Holley highlights 5 of them and communicates the truth:

  • Dreaming is NOT selfish
  • You DO have what it takes
  • It’s NOT too late
  • You DO deserve to dream
  • You DO have time

Takeaway: Answering lies about dreams with the truth helps us knock out excuses holding us back from pursuing God’s will.

You Might Have a God-Sized Dream If

It’s easy to think that God-sized dreams are about results or doing something great for God. The truth is, they’re all about Him! So when we’re wondering if God’s given us a dream, we can start by looking at what He’s already given us—our personalities, strengths, gifts, and passion for serving Him.

Takeaway: We can recognize our God-sized dreams by considering how God made us and how our unique composition can glorify Him.

The Heart of a Dreamer

If you aren’t sure if you’re a dreamer this chapter is for you. Signs you’re a dreamer include:

  • You keep your heart open
  • You encourage others
  • You don’t do it all
  • You pursue a different kind of ambition

Takeaway: If you’ve got the heart of a dreamer, you can make a difference anywhere.

What Comes Next For You

Being a planner, I love understanding practical steps. Holley’s approach begins further back than my to-do lists tend to go though. She invites us to start with our “why.”

Takeaway: If we don’t define our dreams, we can easily get bogged down in “figuring them out” instead of following God along the way.

A Guide to Overcoming Your Fear

This is my favorite chapter! Holley addresses fear as reasonable and God-given. But, then she explains that fear can get out of hand. Her advice for training fear (like a dog!) is gold.

Takeaway: If we avoid fear instead of training it to be useful, we miss out on much of what God has for us.

The Disclaimers

Dreaming isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Anyone who pursues a God-sized dream knows that too well.

Takeaway: We’ll face unexpected and unpleasant things as we dream with God, but we can count on God to always be good and reliable.

When Your God-Sized Dreams Go Wrong

More than just being surprising or challenging, dreaming can also be full-on disastrous. We can fail. Circumstances may seem to kill our dreams dead.

Takeaway: “The Dream Giver is also Dream Keeper.” And, I might add, the One who gives life in the first place and also raises the dead!

How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself

It seems we dreamers can also be over-achievers. Our striving often leads to our demising. Holley shares several ways we can stop sabotaging ourselves, like:

  • Remember you’re human
  • Take care of your body
  • Build a dream team

Takeaway: We need to be “on our side,” seeing ourselves as God does, not as the Enemy wants us to.

Why Your Dream is Worth It

When I am discouraged in the pursuit of a God-sized dream, this is a chapter to return to. There are many reasons our dreams are worth it.

Takeaway: The most important reason our dreams are worth it is that they are all about obeying God and being close to Him!

What were your biggest takeaways from You’re Made for a God-Sized Dream? How has this book impacted your dream-walk with God?

Shared by Bethany McIlrath

God-Sized Dreams Never Die

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Your God-sized dreams will never die because they are meant to have an eternal impact.

Someone tell me I’m not the only one!

There are moments where the thought that I could die anytime at all strikes me silly.

I’m not worried about where I’m going. I believe God’s Word in 2 Timothy 4:18–He will deliver me safely into His Kingdom. I know my loved ones; they’d trust God with my death.

My (foolish!) concern?

I worry that I might die before I get to finish certain study and writing projects. I fear my dreams might be left unfinished, unaccomplished. And with that, I realize I have an idol issue.

God-Sized Dreams Aren’t Meant to be Idols

In chapter two of You’re Made for a God-sized Dream, Holley asks:

“Why are God-sized dreams so compelling?”

Her answer offers swift correction for any dream-scheming:

“Because we powerfully experience God’s presence in our lives through them. It’s not about the destination. It’s not about what we will get if we complete them. It’s about the relationship.”

Fearing of missing out on our dreams before they’re achieved means forgetting what our dreams are all about.

[clickToTweet tweet=”God doesn’t give us dreams so we can work for a trophy on a shelf.” quote=”God doesn’t give us dreams so we can work for a trophy on a shelf.”]

His dreams for us result in the prize of closeness with Christ.

God-Sized Dreams Are Meant to Be Eternal

The kinds of dreams God gives us are intended to glorify Him. They build up His Kingdom in one way or another. That means that pursuing our God-sized Dreams isn’t just about us.

Holley points out that:

“Ultimately you know the calling in your soul is about more, so much more than anything you might hope to gain from it.”

Our dreams are about Him. And He isn’t changing, failing, or going anywhere. Worship is and will be received by God for forever.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Our God-sized dreams aren’t about the temporal. They’re designed by God to have an eternal impact.” quote=”Our God-sized dreams aren’t about the temporal. They’re designed by God to have an eternal impact.”]

God-Sized Dreams Aren’t Threatened By Our Fears

Hopefully your fear about dreaming is not associated with dying. (oh, the human imagination!)

Maybe you worry instead that you’re going to miss out on your dream because of setbacks or surprising life changes. Fear of failure might be holding you back from even starting. Perhaps you fear because the dream just seems too huge.

There’s good news:

God can do all things. No plan of God’s can be thwarted. (Job 42:2)

As Holley says: “You don’t have to be big to have God-sized dreams, because in Him you are enough.”

His dreams for us may not look like we expect. Some aspects that we think are vital might not be. But we know that what He purposes, happens. God will complete your dream in the best way.

[clickToTweet tweet=”We can trust that God’s purposes for the dreams He gives us will NOT die, even when they are threatened.” quote=”We can trust that God’s purposes for the dreams He gives us will NOT die, even when they are threatened.”]

Shared by: Bethany McIlrath

When Your Resume Doesn’t Match Your Dream

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Call me weird, but I love helping people write their resume. It reminds me of those fun matching worksheets we’d fill out in school. Maybe you remember them too?

One column might list dates. The other would outline events. We would draw a line between those that matched.

Similarly, good resumes tend to align with correlating job descriptions. A posting for an organized and communicative coordinator is best met with a resume that highlights successful experiences organizing and communicating. When applying to work at a college, it’s smart for a resume to mention previous work experiences in an academic setting.

What happens when our resumes don’t match our assignments?

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Motherless career women are thrust into parenthood. Men who have worked for decades managing a technology are forced to find a new job field when new tech takes over. Stay-at-homes moms become single and need employment. Students who worked hard for their degree can’t find a related job. People with worthy, noble, God-sized dreams see no possibilities.

Sometimes, we look at our lives and ourselves and don’t see any matching qualifications for the task at hand.

But we’re not the first folks to have that issue.

Here’s a peek into heavenly HR:

Job Description: Second in Command over a Powerful Nation

Resume:

  • Betrayed by jealous family members
  • Sold into slavery, served as overseer
  • Falsely accused, sent to prison
  • Dream interpreter as prisoner
  • Possesses the Spirit of God

Good fit? A God-fit.

Job Description: Great-Grandmother of Second King to Ever Rule a Nation

Resume:

  • Woman from Moab, where child sacrifice was practiced
  • Widow of a man whose family seemed cursed
  • Professional gleaner of leftovers from fields
  • Remarried to older, apparently undesirable kinsman redeemer
  • Enabled by the Spirit of God

Good fit? A God-fit.

Job Description: Apostle Responsible for Leading Many Gentiles to Salvation

Resume:

  • Jewish zealot educated in the law
  • Persecutor of Christians
  • Accomplice to murder of many Christians
  • Temporarily blinded
  • Filled with the Spirit of God

Good fit? A God-fit.

Few (if any!) Bible heroes’ lives “matched up” with what God called them to do.

It’s easy for us to assume that we are either fit for something, or not. Qualified, or not. We may take steps to position ourselves as more fit or qualified. But we have to watch out:

When dreaming seems slow, we’re often tempted to start scheming.

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God is less about matching and more about making.

  • Joseph’s experiences didn’t clearly align with his future job description, but God used them to prepare Him practically and to make Himself known.
  • Ruth’s life in no way pre-disposed her as a clear fit for her future assignment, but God used her experiences to draw her to Himself and to make Himself known.
  • Paul’s work history would appear a hindrance to his future endeavors, but God used the drastic change to equip Paul for a life of seeing others changed and God used Paul to make Himself known.

We, like these people God so loved and set as examples for us, don’t have to scheme as we dream. We don’t have to create paths to beef up our resumes. We also don’t have to write failure across the tops of our assignments when we can’t see how our qualifications and our dreams match up.

Instead, we’re free to believe that God, who is making us still, will make Himself known through us (messy resumes welcome!)

That’s the dream, and it is this moment coming true.

Shared by: Bethany McIlrath

The Treasure of Finished

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What happens when your fears come true before your dreams do?

I faced this question recently when the very reason I’d avoided obeying the Lord in pursuit of my dreams became a reality. Spread out before me, my big scary reason for reluctance made the truth plain.

There is no way around hurt and hardship in the pursuit of our ultimate dream- to glorify God.

Whether we’re joyfully skipping after Christ or cautiously tiptoeing as He coaxes us along, we will encounter stumbling blocks. We will face opposition. Many of our fears will come true.

These aren’t possibilities, they are certainties. Jesus warned us not to be surprised by trouble in this world. “Do not be afraid” is repeated all throughout Scripture because God knows we often have cause to be afraid.

Thank the Lord fears being realized don’t stop dreams from coming true.

Growing old, well past child-bearing years, couldn’t keep God from fulfilling the dream He gave Abraham and Sarah. Joseph being sold into slavery and then falsely accused and imprisoned didn’t prevent God from making true the dreams He gave Joseph in his youth. Christ’s crucifixion didn’t nullify the dreams God gave Mary 30 or so years earlier, when He told her she would bear a son who would be king and whose “nation will have no end.”

We so often wish to “undo” certain things we’ve said or done. Regret and wishing we could “go back” or that events turned out differently is commonplace.

But there is such joy and grace in the Lord’s design of time as forward-moving. What a treasure that so many things can’t be undone!

“It is finished” also means “it cannot be undone.”

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When a bad day threatens that you aren’t lovable, it’s a blessing nothing can undo the words of love poured out by your people.

When fears are realized and your dreams seem like they’re teetering on the brink of destruction, nothing can undo the steps you’ve taken in obedience.

When you see no way around pain, you can walk right through it because God who is with you will deliver you safely. What He has secured will not be destroyed.

There is no retroactive ability to destroy what God has already built. What He calls finished cannot be undone. What He says He will complete cannot be left undone.

God’s Word cannot be chained. (2 Timothy 2:9)

Not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord spoke concerning you. (Joshua 23:14)

“Forever and ever amen” means today and tomorrow and every day after. The phrase follows prayer after prayer, affirmation after affirmation. We believe in a never-changing, all-knowing, all-powerful God. He’s got forever steadily up and running, and He knows how it all turns out.

As we pursue the dreams He gives us, we can know they aren’t possibilities, but certainties. They may not be what we thought they would be, but when our dreams come true they will be what God planned.

We can walk through fears coming true before our dreams ever do knowing the truth:

He who calls us is more than faithful- He is able. And He will.

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For that I am humbled and grateful. How about you?

Shared by: Bethany McIlrath


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