Desires Activate Dreams

Dreams are within all of us. The desire for a dream to come alive is in everyone. When our desires are aligned with God’s word we can CONTEND and PRAY for the dream that is deep within us to come forth. It says in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the DESIRES and PETITIONS of your heart.” Let’s encourage ourselves in the Lord and encourage others to petition every DESIRE and DREAM.

God has placed several KINDS of dreams and desires within each person. Each desire and dream have a PURPOSE.

What if the desire and dream that was placed inside of you was twofold?

To draw you closer to God’s heart, and to awaken a dormant dream within someone else.

You never know how your dream can spark another person’s dream.

I often wonder what keeps us from pursuing our dreams. I also think about what the world would be like if EVERYONE contended for their dream.

 A little over a year and half ago I started to pursue a dream of mine to publish a book. I actually held on to the manuscript for about a year before taking the first steps to publish it. All I knew was that the desire was within me to publish a book, but the steps to make it happen were BIG and overwhelming.

I did what I only knew I could in that moment, I prayed. I asked God to help me and to bring the right people and connections into my life so that I could take the next steps. I didn’t just sit and wait after I prayed, after I prayed, I moved. I went into action.

I started to inquire and reach out to people who it thought could help. I began to slowly see how God was aligning the right people into my life. One phone call would lead to another connection. I call them “God-connections.”

As I went through the self-publishing process, God also used people in my life to encourage and support the desire and dream inside of me.

Encouragement is like food! It helps fuel the process!  

There are so many neat details that I would love to share with you about how God specifically provided and supplied resources for this dream to come forth but that will have to wait for another time. I will just sum it up by saying, God is faithful, and He is good!

In February of 2020 we celebrated the book launch of my first children’s book Pickles and Prayer!

I couldn’t help but praise the Lord and say, “Thank you Lord! Father do what you will with this book.” I prayed and asked the Lord to use it for His Kingdom. To open doors that only He could open.

A few months after the book launch my Dad called me and asked if I would be interested in getting Pickles and Prayer translated into Spanish. The dream began to grow…

Within a couple of months, the steps to translate the original manuscript of Pickles and Prayer into Spanish began!  Soon after Pickles and Prayer was fully translated into Pepinillos y Rezos and distributed to children in Columbia when my dad went to do ministry there.

I share this not to boast about myself but to encourage YOU with the desires and dreams that God has placed within you.

Because DESIRES ACTIVATE DREAMS and DREAMS SPARK DREAMS.

You never know who will want to join with you and how your DREAM can GROW! 

A DREAM also provides opportunities for others to encourage, participate and to help. I believe God wants us to DREAM, ENCOURAGE, and LIVE for Him every day.

It’s time for DREAMS within you to be ACTIVATED!

 So, after self-publishing my first children’s book, Pickles and Prayer people started to reach out and ask me questions like, “what were your first steps in writing your children’s book?” “How did you go about publishing it?” Followed by statements like, “I’ve always wanted to publish a book” or “I have a manuscript, I just don’t know what to do next.” Some have even asked for help with taking their first step so that they can publish their book. Which I think is so COOL!

(Active faith sparks active faith)

Something was ACTIVATED within them. HOPE rose to the surface. Dreams were SPARKED once again.

It’s never too late to dream and to pursue dreams that God has placed inside of you.

There are SO many stories of people in the bible who had BIG dreams and desires that we can read be encouraged from but I’m only going to highlight two of them, Joseph’s dream and Hannah’s desire.

Genesis 37:1-44:9

“Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”  His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.”

Joseph’s dream came to pass.

1 Samuel 1:10-19

“In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.  And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

 As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”

 “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”

Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

 She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

 Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.  So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.””

Hannah’s desire came to pass.

May this be the year of the deep desires within you activating BIG dreams out of you for HIS KINGDOM!