Obey and Submit
Dreams
Die, Hope Lives
What is needed...is
to see God in everything, and to receive everything directly from His hands,
with no intervention of second causes. And it is just to this that we must be
brought, before we can know an abiding experience of entire abandonment and
perfect trust. Our abandonment must be to God, not to man, and our trust must
be in Him, not in any arm of flesh, or we shall fail at the first trial.
--Hannah Whitall Smith[i]
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e all have dreams of what the future will be, of things we’d
like to do, places we’d like to go, and the way we’d like things to be.
Likewise, we often have strong opinions about things we do not want to do and places we do not
want to go.
If we aren’t careful, our ideas of
happiness become shaped by when/then statements such as these: when I’m out of school, then I’ll be free;
when I have kids, then I will feel fulfilled; when our kids leave home, then
we’ll travel…and so on. When our ideas of happiness rest in a future when
“things will be different” we miss living in the peace of the provision God
gives in every present moment.
The Lord knows us best and we can
trust Him to take our heart's desires into account. Thus, when our dreams for
the future seem to be dying at an unprecedented rate, we can still say with
confidence, "…not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42 KJV). The Lord
understands our tears as we release our “maybe someday” hopes into His hands,
and when our tears dry, we will experience the peace of trust in Him.
The Lord does have compassion for
us as we lay our dreams on the altar, but with the disciplining love of a
Father, He expects us to complete the transaction of release. This is because
He knows that what He has in store for us is far superior to anything we could
envision for ourselves. As Matthew Henry says, “The soul of man is in want, and
seeks for satisfaction; but becomes weary of seeking that in the world, which
is not to be had in it. Yet they shall have a constant supply, where one would
least expect it. I will open rivers of grace, rivers of living water..."[ii]
God has revealed His power and love
to us, and based on what He has shown us about Himself, He expects us to trust
in Him. Trust brings with it a willingness to be disciplined under God’s hand
so that times of grief or hard work that we would not have chosen for ourselves
do not tempt us to resentment toward Him. Dreams seem more enticing than the
difficulties of reality, and it is easy to lapse to complaints against the One
who has allowed us the difficulties we face. It always comes down to this: are
we willing to trust His vision over our own? Are we willing to submit to His
authority? Are we willing to work when He says, “Work,” rest when He says,
“Rest,” and to endure the strengthening program He places before us, even if
we’d rather not?
Let’s say it together, “Yes,
Lord!”
Pray: Father, I confess that You
are all I want or need. I place my trust in You for my past, present, and
future. I lay my good plans at Your feet. I entrust my grief over how I’d
thought things might someday be to You, and I open my heart to the much greater
blessings You offer. I say, “Yes, Lord,” to Your perfect plan for my life. Amen.
~~~
And you shall remember the whole way that the
Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might
humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep
his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger
and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that
he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by
every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing
did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know
then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God
disciplines you.
Deuteronomy 8:2-5
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