A couple of days I received an email from an old friend who lives in another community. She shared that they will soon be moving to Alaska to live a dream that has been in their hearts for some time now. Since it has been several years since I have been in contact with her, I was taken back by this huge change approaching them.
Approximately 8 years ago, God had blessed them with a beautiful farm. The house was over one-hundred years old. Therefore, the house as well as the land needed much tending to. God gave them a vision for this farm, so they set their strong hands to work and labored for years to fulfill the vision they had for this property. After succeeding and developing the land they had further dreams to have a goat dairy farm.
To sum up the story, this family has heard God's voice to lay down and to let go of their dream with the farm and move to Alaska to run a business there in an aircraft repair industry. What touched me the most about her testimony was how God had touched their hearts on the more weighty matters of life: love and mercy.
She went on to share about how their children had been trained well in the spiritual disciplines of prayer and prophesy,faith, and enduring through tough times. However she shared that common respect had been lost in their family through strife. Manifestations of this were nick-picking, coarse jesting and the like. They became grieved and began to repent to God and to ask Him to have His way with the family.
This ministered to me so strongly as it challenged me to examine my own life and family and to ask where we had maybe lost our way in these very truths. One can imagine with nine children in various stages of growth, there will be plenty of nick-picking and getting off the path.
Corporately. there is much conversing about the dreams of our hearts and what we hope for our futures. What I am realizing is that yes, God holds very dear the dreams of our hearts. More than likely He put them there. However, do we sometimes get side tracked by the vision that we overlook the here and now? Do we often forget the simpler things of love and mercy and fail to live them in our own homes? What good is a dream if we cannot live in harmony and forgiveness in this present time?
Life is so much more than my dreams. Here is my heart on this.
True Life...
So much more than what I am called to bring to this world.
Yes, I have a dream. So do you. We were created to dream, to imagine and to create.
God has given me a voice and abilities.
What profit are they though
If I lose that which is of the weightiest matters?
Loving,
Forgiving,
Extending grace even when I feel it wasn't my fault?
Offering mercy to those who cannot even receive it...but giving it anyway?
Reaching out when it hurts the most?
Our maturity is tested in the furnace of relationships.
We are called to lavish love without strings attached.
Healing comes in obeying the most difficult request of giving that which we find so hard to release.
Our own rights,our own opinions, our own stance.
Losing love along the way is the only thing to fear.
May we hold dear the weightier matters.
Then we will not lose our way.
And the outcome of our dreams will be the fruit of love...pure love
And contentment will be our resting place as we wait and as we extend loving kindness to all..
Whether we receive anything or not.
If you are going through a difficult time in a relationship, I would have you ponder this question. If you knew that 95% of the problem was the other person's fault, are you willing to acknowledge that the other 5% is your fault? If so, would you be willing to work on changing the 5% you are responsible for? That small percentage could be the very key to your healing and to the healing of your relationship.
(This statement came from the book, Every Woman's Marriage)
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