Dream Weaver Series

The Dream Weaver

New Hope Community Pastor Bob Briggs October 3, 2004 p.m.

What dream do you have that is beating in your heart which has gone unfulfilled? Perhaps it goes back to your childhood when you first dreamed the dream. Time has passed, the dream has been placed on the back burner, a pleasant thought, but one that you have found unrealized for a number of reasons. I had attended the Dream Giver conference with Bruce Wilkinson, author of the best selling book, Prayer of Jabez, coming to a place in my life where I realize I have unfulfilled dreams, an unfulfilled mega-dream which I have not even scratched the surface because it appears so insurmountable. I don’t think I am alone, most of us in this room have a dream like mine, not the same dream, but a dream which has been blocked time after time and each time we have receded away from the dream but the beat of the dream is still there. Even now, as I have broached on the subject of a dream, that dream, your dream is beating a little stronger, trying to emerge from the deep recesses of your life so it can take a breath of fresh air and bloom again.

Over the next several weeks, I want to talk about the dream, my dream and your dream, and how we can, using the timeless principles of the Bible brought to light through the teach of Bruce Wilkinson, guided by the Holy Spirit, help us to recapture the fire and the passion for our individual dream.

As I was working on the preparation for this series, I met with someone who told me they did not have a dream. Anyone else feel that way? That is not uncommon. When you have tried, and seemingly failed at the advancement of your dream, it is easy to have so suppressed it so as to feel there is no dream. But you have one.

There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood, which was destined for the fire. He obeyed, and produced a masterpiece from a log of common fire-wood.

Many of us lose great opportunities in life by waiting to find sandalwood for our carvings, when they really lie hidden in the common logs that we burn. We are going to take time to walk through the valley of our dreams and find that block of oak and begin again the process of carving out our life dream.

God told Jeremiah reading from The Message, Jeremiah 1:3 “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: A prophet to the nations—that’s what I had in mind for you.”

We are no different than Jeremiah. God knew us before we were born. Psalm 139:13-16 sstates For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God does not take away what He has given. The dream is there, waiting to be rediscovered, waiting for us to reconnect with the calling, the passion, that special dream and so we embark on the journey of a lifetime. So lets talk about your dream, and talk about mine as we enter this day of discovery.

Bruce Wilkinson outlines 7 stages of a dream. We want to take time to explore each of these stages and find which stage our dream has been waiting for us to pick it back up and run with it. Everyone is somewhere in this process. If you have more than one dream, you could be in a multiple of places as you connect the dots and draw the dream together.

The first stage is The Dream. Everyone has one because God has given it to you. Whether you are a Christian or not, before you were born, God placed a God-sized dream in your heart.

Stage two is The Comfort Zone. You will not find your dream here, but you may have decided to live you life in the comfort zone because it is comfortable.