God Does Not Care About You Chasing Your Dreams
We live in a culture that sensationalizes “purpose.” Somehow, we’ve come to believe that this illusive concept is the missing link to an assurance of fulfillment, riches, and comfort. However, anyone who has embarked on a journey to find their purpose knows that the quest is not an easy one. It’s often laced with heartbreaking moments of sacrifice. For us dream-chasers, that vision for our lives often keeps us up at night. Fortunately, over time most learn how to manage the pendulum of emotions that go from extreme highs of pride and joy to extreme lows of impatience and the sorrow of sacrifice. Until one day, you realize that if you are a dream-chaser, who is also a believer, the dream is simply not enough because God really does not care about you chasing your dreams.
Alright, maybe it’s not that He doesn’t care. After-all, the Bible makes it clear that He cares about every area of our lives, including a seemingly minute detail like the numbers of hairs on our head (see Luke 12:7, Matthew 6:8, and Psalm 139:17–18). From Genesis to Revelation we see a picture of a God that cares about so many things like poverty, justice, children, mercy and civil rights, to name a few. The challenge is to understand that beyond all of these things, He cares about His glory first and foremost. This means that anything, including our comfort, that stands in the way of His glory cannot and will not take precedent over that primary concern.
Self-help gurus, motivational speakers and the like have led us to believe that fulfilling our purpose is our primary goal in life. It sounds noble enough that if we walk in our purpose as business leaders, authors, motivational speakers or entertainers, we will create a platform that shows the world what God can do. That may be part of God’s plan for us. However, here’s what it definitely is not: God’s plan is not for a life dedicated to a pursuit that exalts self as the chief architect of any one person’s success. Such a life results in us being the focal point of anything good in our lives.
The reality is that every good and perfect gift comes from Him. When our plans work out, it’s a testament to His grace, but we quickly forget that and charge our success to our work ethic, our networks, and our plans.
When things sometimes fall apart in our journey, it jolts our faith because our focus has been on our vision and not His glory.
We insist that because God has given us a vision for our lives, He must come through. That’s true only if that vision exalts Him before it exalts anything else.
To my fellow dream-chasers, be careful with prayers that insist on deliverance that leads only to our comfort. Way beyond our comfort, God cares about His glory and our holiness. Period. Because He cares about His glory, He puts us in position to testify of that glory. Be mindful that His glory and our holiness could mean being a position that is desperately uncomfortable.
A common snare from the enemy is to get us to believe that discomfort equates to God’s anger or ignorance. It doesn’t. Both our comfort and discomfort are meant to turn our hearts back to Him in submission and honor.
If your dream demands that God always makes your path straight, then it probably promotes self-reliance and not God-reliance.
He is under no obligation to honor that. In my journey as a fellow dream-chaser, I have come to rely on this truth only: promotion comes from God, but we exist not to seek promotion. The promotion is sometimes a byproduct of that glory, not the purpose of our existence.
