Life's Daily Challenge Devotional

Dare to dream

“The Spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit,” Proverbs 18:14?

To those who dare to dream,

Few things excite me more than allowing my spirit and soul to delve into the visionary realm where things do not yet exist. As I allow the boundaries of my imagination to be stretched I sense such closeness to the Creative Spirit of God, Himself. I feel akin to Him, and realize that being Creator is such a part of Who He is, that He longs to share His creative skills with me. Every creation begins with vision. As I reach beyond all that my experience has taught me, and the paradigms of my culture, I find a whole new realm of possibilities. Some people would call this learning to think outside the box.

As I consider these things, I can’t help wondering how many times I have not ventured outside this box. In what ways have I limited myself, or other people, or even God, Himself, by confining my thinking to perceptions and mind sets that fell far short of what could be. As I consider this, I cannot help becoming a little melancholy realizing that we live in a world that mocks, ridicules and strips people of their dreams.

Human history has been one long procession of people seeking to gain knowledge and understanding apart from God. We dissect, and label and categorize. We feel compelled to pigeon hole, identify and separate everything so we can understand it. Stepping outside the boundaries of convention can be extremely uncomfortable. Most of us learned this very early in life when someone began teaching us that there was a right and a wrong way to color. We were taught that we should stay within the lines and color one direction. We learned that colors should be matched with the way things really are in life. Sky is blue and grass is green.

It’s not that all conformity is bad. It’s just that somewhere along the way we stopped wondering if things could be any different from the way we had always experienced them. In addition to this, most of us grew up in homes where convention dictated the decor of our homes. Our creative attempts were probably limited to inconspicuous parts of the house like the refrigerator door. It’s probably rare that any parent would frame and showcase their child’s artwork in a central area of the home. More than likely, the work that we were so proud of at the time clashed with the color scheme and furniture of the living or dining room. In more severe cases, perfectionistic parents might have criticized and discouraged our imaginations, building projects or musical experiments.

It doesn’t take much to crush the human spirit. Indifference, alone, can stifle and squelch it. Many adults carry within them a child who was forced to grow up too soon. In a world of harsh and cruel realities children are often denied their childhood. They are taught that it’s not OK to be childlike. Somewhere in this process the creative spirit is stolen. Some stop dreaming. Others never really get a chance to start.

I want to challenge you to dare to dream. Locked away inside you is a part longing to join with God in His work. You will never become all He created you to be until you learn to see your life outside the boundaries of the way things have always been. Ask the Lord to heal and restore that child-like ability to step outside of convention. Together, you and He can work together to realize and plan for dimensions of your life that do not yet exist.