Last week we began the process of exploring our God given dreams as we move into the destiny He has planned for us before we were born. In fact, our dream governed how we were formed. As you began this week to explore your dream potential, ultimately, the dream God has given you will meet a major need, ultimately it will solve a problem. The dream is not dependant on others but it is dependent ultimately upon you. God has given you a dream and you do it. You have been made the way you are because God knew with the gifts, talents, abilities, environment, life experiences you have had or will have, make you perfect to fulfill the dream.
Did not John Milton, while yet a child dream of writing an epic poem that the world would not willingly let die? The nebulous dream of the child became the fixed ideal of the youth. In his studies, his travels, through the stormy years of manhood, the vision never left him. Blind and old, the poet realized the dream of the child; and the heroic strains of Paradise Lost continue to echo through the centuries.
What you need to do now is guard against delaying the dream, or diminishing the size of your God given dream. It’s easy to do. It looks like a mountain and you think it might be too hard to climb, but don’t reduce it, don’t distort it, don’t divorce yourself from the dream but get ready to break through to attain your dream.
You need to begin to design a plan but remember, the plan is not the dream, the plan is a means to get you to where your dream is. Hold to plan loosely, plans can and do change but hold onto the dream tightly, it will not change but only grow into the God design the Designer of the dream drew it to be.
You might be thinking, well, I tired and it did not work out. It is not the dream that did not work out, you just had a wrong plan for getting there. It’s time to draw a new plan.
A problem with many dreamers is they want everyone else to embrace, endorse, and finance their dream but they are not willing to put in the effort themselves. I have people tell me they have this dream and when I ask them what is it going to take to realize the dream, they don’t know. Who have they talked to that would know? Well, no one. You must be willing to take the first step, to pursue your dream with your resources before you try and tap everyone else. It is going to take a reallocation of your time. You only have so many hours in a day, use them wisely in the pursuit of your dream. Are you spending time gathering information that will take you to the next level? Are you making a personal investment of your treasure to make the dream come about? And are you moving more and more of your talent into the acquisition of your dream? If you are not in the forefront investing your resources, your time, treasure and talent to accomplish your dream, don’t expect anyone else to come on board.
Faithfully pursue your dream until the dream has been fulfilled, with all that you have. I am talking about commitment. When it gets hard, when the resources dry up, when help doesn’t appear to be on the way but the dream is still beating loudly within you. Pay the price others have paid by hanging in there, holding on, your dream may just be around the corner waiting for you to walk another block to see it materialize.
D. L. Moody once told of hearing the story of a man’s dream in which he imagined that when he died he was taken by the angels to a beautiful temple. After admiring it for a time he discovered that one little stone was left out. He said to the angel, “What is this stone left out for?”
The angel replied, “That was left out for you; but you wanted to do great things, and so there was no room left for you.” He was startled and awoke, and resolved that he would become a worker for God, and that man always worked faithfully after that. Let us make sure there is no stone left out because of being dreamless.
Last week I said there were 7 steps to the dream. We might also look at them as obstacles which have the potential of preventing you from moving forward into the acquisition of your dream. I want to talk tonight about the Comfort Zone. It can be a dream killer.
Again, much of the material I am presenting comes from Bruce Wilkinson, the author of the book The Dreamgiver. The timeless steps found in Scripture can lead us well as a guide to our dream, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
People become oblivious to the consequences of the comfort zone. Turn to Genesis 11. I am reading verses 27-32 from The Message 27This is the story of Terah. Terah had Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran had Lot. 28Haran died before his father, Terah, in the country of his family, Ur of the Chaldees. 29Abram and Nahor each got married. Abram’s wife was Sarai; Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of his brother Haran. Haran had two daughters, Milcah and Iscah. 30Sarai was barren; she had no children. 31Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and Sarai his daughter-in-law (his son Abram’s wife) and set out with them from Ur of the Chaldees for the land of Canaan. But when they got as far as Haran, they settled down there. 32Terah lived 205 years. He died in Haran.
Terah came to Haran and he settled there, good words to underline in your Bible concerning the pitfall of the comfort zone. Terah settled and he died. Bruce Wilkinson calls this the Land of the Familiar. We love the familiar. Few people truly like change so they settle in. They develop habits in their life. It breaks down to the way we do everything in life. When I got up this morning, I brushed by teeth by holding the toothbrush in my right hand, I started to put the toothpaste on the brush from the back to the front, everything I did getting ready for the morning service from getting up to getting to church is the routine, the habit I have developed in almost 6 years of being here. We are creatures of habit because we live in the land of the familiar, and if we get out of the habit…Terah moved from Ur to Haran…we quickly find a way to develop a routine when we have arrived. The land of the familiar. The Israelites said lets go back to Egypt because this is too unfamiliar to us here in the wilderness as we pursue the dream of a promised land.
The way we can determine the parameters of our comfort zone is through discomfort. When things no longer feel comfortable, we know we are on the edge of the zone. For many, when the discomfort happens, they run back to the center, avoiding that edgy feeling, embracing the known not seeking to push out into the unknown.
Right now, some of you could be living in the comfort zone. Fear is keeping you from moving forward. Abraham, when faced with the choice of Haran and comfort or the exciting adventure God had for him, he chose to leave and live an edgy life, what decision will you make?
If you are going to fulfill your destiny, to live out your dream, you are going to have to overcome the fear of moving forward into the unknown, your fear of leaving comfort and experiencing at times discomfort in your journey. You will have to determine in your heart and mind the comfort zone is unacceptable for you. Can you do that? If you can’t, you will find yourself a prisoner of your own comfort.
There are tons of fears that keep people trapped. Let me share a few…Hagiophobia: Fear of saints or holy things. Ecclesiophobia: Fear of church. Deipnophobia: Fear of dining and dinner conversations. Dementophobia: Fear of insanity. Ideophobia: Fear of ideas. Syngenesophobia: Fear of relatives. Technophobia: Fear of technology. And a fear that people in our community seem to have more than any other place it seems in the nation, Homilophobia: Fear of sermons.
Sadly, fear keeps people from moving forward and the acquiring of their dream. You have to choose your dream over your comfort zone. You need to clarify what it is that keeps you stuck. Are you fearful of the unexpected happening. You will stay locked out of your dream forever because the joy in the journey of life is the unexpected things which happen along the way, some joyful, some, well a challenge.
Some people find themselves unworthy of such a calling of God, they think who am I to do this. Everyone who has done something great for God, people who have fulfilled their life dream and mission, are just ordinary people who have been provided with the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish what they were willing to set their hand to in fulfilling God’s destiny in their life. Some people just don’t advance because they think they are unable or they join the ranks of over 80% of people who are just unwilling to move out in pursuit of their God given dream. You can decide right now, I will be part of the almost 20% who will make a difference.
It is going to take courage. Someone said courage is not the absence of fear, it just means that in the face of fear, confronted with danger or difficulty, I will press on as the Apostle Paul said, to the upward calling of Christ Jesus. In the face of fear, make an active decision to take hold of the courage God has given you in light of the unlimited power God contains to fulfill your destiny no matter what may be happening around you.
Jesus had been ministering to the multitudes of people, he just feed 5,000 men plus women and children when we read this account in Matthew 14 starting at verse 22 22Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but the boat was already a considerable distance[1] from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It’s a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid."
28"Lord, if it’s you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29"Come," he said.
30Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
32And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
We can be critical of Peter who started to sink, but how many of us would have gotten out of the boat in the first place? Even with the storm and the waves crashing against the boat, the boat was more comfortable for the rest of the disciples over the fear of walking on water even when Jesus told Peter to come.
The voice of God is calling you to come, come out of the comfort zone and begin to move into the destiny He has planned for you. Stop being afraid of being afraid, take a step of faith. The fear is not going to go away, it will always be there but so too will the hand of God that can lift you when the storms of life want to swallow you away. The test is before you.
Let’s pray
