Dreaming* (based on an interview with Steve Backlund)
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
To delight you have to become like a little kid, little children are great at delighting, always expressing delight as they anticipate what’s going to happen today, just look at how they delight in a candy shop. As we develop that childlike attitude, the more joyful we will become, and the more childlike we are, the more we are going to dream. The joy message and the dreaming message go wonderfully together. The believer is on an adventure with God, we are not working for God, but we are working with God, as we a working with God we joyfully anticipate and ask “what Lord are you going to do today?”
Coupled with this is the truth that God has created us all for significance, and wants to partner with our desires, as we understand that He wants to partner with us then we feel free to dream, and bring to Him our ideas too.
Question: What do you do when you are in a place where dreams are taking a lot longer to be fulfilled than you would have hoped?
When you look in the Bible you find that many experienced delays in dreams coming about. When delay happens seek to keep your hope going by asking “Lord, what are you doing in me and what are you developing in me during this delay?” Abraham and Sarah are good examples of people who experienced delay. At age 99 Abraham actually had his name changed from Abram to Abraham, meaning father of many nations. That meant he declared the dream as an identity. Declaring the dream as an identity statement created breakthrough in one year for Isaac to be born. Making declarations, declaring the dream in your mouth, and knowing what God is doing in you, and understanding how He is redeeming the delay are crucial ways to partner with God in the context of delay.
The greater the impossibility of the dream, the greater the story we need from God (the greater the confirmation we need from God). We need the story to help us become fully convinced. Romans 4 says that Abraham became fully convinced. Becoming fully convinced and persuaded involved Abraham going on a journey with God. It didn’t just happen to him automatically. He went through seasons of doubt where he asked, “is this really God? My body is as good as dead and Sarah is barren” When we are doubting about the Dream, and asking “is it just my desire, or are you really in this dream?” We can ask Holy Spirit for a little extra supernatural story to help us become fully convinced.
*Steve Backlund, Dreaming, Revival Chats, iBethel TV, April 13, 2016.
Jamie Lee, 02/12/2018