Honoring the Giver of Your Dreams

Good Morning,

Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Gen. 22:12

At first glance you may wonder what this verse has to do with our subject of dreaming. This testing of Abraham is often a difficult passage of Scripture for many. What was God’s purpose here? I think we see God’s purpose in the verse above. Abraham’s gift of a son was long awaited. A hundred years of waiting to be exact. It is hard for us to imagine his love for Isaac and the place he had in his heart. In fact, it is possible that Isaac was beginning to take on an inappropriate place in Abraham’s heart; the place reserved only for God.  Yet his obedience showed that God would still be number one in his life.

We have talked about how God has placed certain desires and passions in us. He has special works he designed us to embrace; dreams for a full life and a life of impact (see Eph. 2:10). It is not uncommon for people to become consumed with their dreams. In their excitement they spend copious amounts of time planning and executing. Afterall, other people are benefiting and being impacted. That’s good, right?

Only to a certain point is it right. Abraham’s love for his son was not to take on more importance than his love for God. The same is true for our big life dreams. The dreams are not more important than the giver of those dreams.  God gives us these dreams as a way to honor Him and impact the world for Him.  Our desire to bring our dreams to life must never become more important than pleasing God. And when we make pleasing Him first, we can pursue our dreams with right perspective. We can defend them to doubters with confidence. We can trust Him instead of ourselves when the road gets challenging. We can rejoice in success with right perspective.  Because ultimately it is about Him, not us. And what God brings from the dreams He gives us is up to Him, not us.  This is a very freeing way to live.

In his insightful little book, The Dream Giver, Bruce Wilkinson summarizes this thought beautifully. If you are excited about discovering and giving life to your God-sized dreams, I encourage you to keep the following thoughts ever in front of you. 

“Is there any person or group (or dream, added by Ron K) you are honoring above the Dream Giver? Once you choose to please God more than others, you are ready to receive from others only what is helpful and move on to the next phase of realizing your calling for God.” 1.

Questions to ponder this week:

Is there a person, group, or cause, you are honoring more than God Himself?

Is there someone whose approval you desire more than God’s approval?

How can getting this in order bring you more peace and freedom as you pursue your God-given dreams?

Live on purpose,

Ron Klopfenstein

1. The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson, published by Multnomah