Monday, November 13, 2006

CULTIVATING YOUR DREAM

Okay. I know you've been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for this post, so here we go. "Every person's dream is different, but all dreams grow in the same 'soil." Four main ways to cultivate your dream are: 1. Prayer 2. Praise 3. Bible study and 4. Fellowship. Yes, basics of Christian life, but somehow easily forgotten a lot of times when it comes to discovering and cultivating a dream. One definition of prayer is when you converse with God about the dreams He put in your heart. This is one of if not the fundamental purposes of prayer. Our prayers should center around accomplishing God's will for our lives. God put dreams in our hearts...each and every one of us, so our prayers should be conversations we have with Him about those dreams and purposes. Did you know that some prayers are weak and can actually make God angry? I'm sure there are times when my prayers have been like that...selfish, self-serving, self-absorbed...get the picture? It's all about me, or so I tend to think sometimes...okay. Most of the time.

"Dreamless prayer is impotent prayer. God dislikes aimless chatter just as much as e do. You could pray twelve hours a day, but if there were no purpose or point to it, it wouldn't have any effect. It would be empty. God doesn't fellowship with nothingness." (emphasis mine) "Aimless chatter can fill our heads with purposeless thoughts and anxieties. But when our prayers spring from our passionate desire to fulfill our dreams, prayer becomes powerful. That's when we touch the heart of God with requests, observations, and meditations on the dreams He put inside of us."

Perfect Praise..."I believe God is less concerned with the "how" of praise than He is with the heart of praise. One peculiar Bible passage gives us a key to this subject. It says: 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise.' -- Matthew 21:16....the word perfect in this passage means 'matured,' meaning that the most mature praise on the planet comes from a little child. How can that be? Jesus was saying that perfect praise is the first-time praise. It springs from the same fresh realization and wonder we feel upon experiencing something for the first time."

How often do we get so caught up in the day-to-day activities that we forget that each day is a new creation? Want a big secret? Approach everything as if it were the first time you were doing it. See what you get and then let me know your results. "I have first-time experiences every day of my life. It's called perfected praise, having the excitement of YOUR FIRST LOVE. The longer you serve God, the better it can get. Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before." Don't you want to feel like that?

Bible Study...letting God's truths shape our thoughts instead of what's going on around us. The robe of righteousness is not tailored to us. We're constantly being tailored to fit the robe of righteousness. "Each of us comes to this present moment with a set of opinions, outlooks, and perspectives that were formed by countless factors: our upbringing, family, school experience, jobs, and so on. As we go through life, we may fit ourselves to many forms. Some people find a form they like and stay in it for the rest of their lives. Perhaps it was the form they received as children, as college students, or in a certain occupation. The question is not will your mind be formed, but what will form it?"

this is good..."Perhaps you have a cup of coffee or some other drink nearby. The liquid of that drink is conformed to the shape of the cup. You can bless it and turn it into holy water or add sugar or cream to it, but the shape of that liquid will remain stubbornly the same. To transform it, you must remove it from the cup that is forming it." Kind of like one of my favorite songs by Superchick...The view will never change unless you decide to change it."

Fellowship. "Everybody needs a place where they can go and share their dreams and plans with people who won't laugh or make fun of them. Fellowship is built on encouragement, . It should strengthen you, build you up, and help you to see your life and dreams more clearly." So many times we get together with the intention of good fellowship, and things just start going downhill. A negative comment here about someone and then another one, and then it just seems to go downhill from there. "Proper fellowship is powerful; improper fellowship can be destructive, even to those involved."

"The reason it's important to cultivate your dream with these four habits is because no dream will flourish in the wrong soil. You could choose to ignore these habits, but I can guarantee that your dream would stall, the excitement would go out of it, and you would lose that strong connection you feel to your destiny. Instead, cultivate a life of: Prayer, Perfected Praise, Bible reading, and Fellowship. Your dream will grow steady and strong!"

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