Dreaming With God

Earlier this year, when I was at a youth retreat over President’s Day weekend, something was said in a seminar that has been floating around the back of my mind ever since. He was talking about goals, and said that we should write out goals so big that if we attain them we’ll know we couldn’t have done it on our own. In other words, we should make our dreams so big that when they come true, we’ll know God must have been involved.

I was reminded of this when listening to Casting Crown’s new album “Thrive” yesterday. One of my new favorite songs, “Dream For You,” includes these lines.

So come on, let Me dream, let Me dream for you
I am strong when you’re weak and I’ll carry you
So let go of your plan, be caught by My hand
I’ll show you what I can do
When I dream for you
I have a dream for you

Isn’t this a beautiful idea? to think that God has dreams, and hopes, and plans for you that are bigger and better than anything you can imagine, and that He wants to dream with you?

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jer. 29:11)

This is especially encouraging for me right now, two years out of college and still struggling to decide what my next move should be. For as long as I can remember, my dreams have involved doing something creative to earn money while staying at home to raise a family. It might not seem like a very big dream, but it’s important to me and, while I can get excited about an idea that would move in a different direction (such as returning to grad school and focusing on my  research about Christianity and gender roles in 18th century literature), I can’t seem to feel at peace with that decision for more than, oh, 36 hours. That’s why I’ll be launching an Etsy store shortly to supplement income from my copywriting and, hopefully, fiction writing. Stay tuned for more news about that in the next couple weeks! As far as I can tell, the marriage and family part of my dream is still quite some way from being realized, but I can work on this working-from-home part of my dream now and trust God for the rest — or trust that He’ll come up with an even more amazing dream for me.