I never thought I would do this. Two years ago, backpacking through eleven countries, leaving everything behind in order to share God’s love with the world, didn’t even occupy my wildest dream. Clearly, I didn’t have wild dreams back then—but God did. He always has, and He always will. It’s a matter of us choosing to dream with Him.
I never chose to dream with Him because I never thought that I could accomplish impossible things. I never believed that I was strong enough—and I was completely right.
However, living with that focus was where I went wrong. My eyes were upon myself, and what I could do in my own strength, when I should have been looking at Jesus all along. Until I chose to shift my focus, look at Him, and ask Him what He’s dreaming about, I couldn’t dream with Him—or share the experience of making those wild dreams into realities with Him.
I feel like I spent so many years acting like the Israelites in Numbers 13. You see, up to that point, the children of God were living in the wilderness, struggling and complaining. Our gracious God heard their complaints and longed to share His dream with them.
So, in Chapter 13, the Lord tells Moses to send spies into the Promised Land to scope out the situation—to assess both the richness of the land and the strength of the enemies currently living there.
When the twelve spies come back to give their report, only one, a man named Caleb, has anything good to say. Because he has set his gaze upon the Lord, Caleb believes that the Israelites can overcome the enemies and take control of the land promised to them. Caleb has been dreaming with God.
On the other hand, the remaining eleven spies judge themselves to be grasshoppers compared to their enemies. Because of their choice to focus on their weaknesses, instead of the strength of their God, a whole generation of Israel dies before coming into the Promised Land. If, like Caleb, they had chosen to dream with God, they would have seen the incredible promise fulfilled in their lifetime.
I lived so much of my past like the eleven spies who were defeated before they even started. Even today, here in Albania, the temptation to focus on how dehydrated and malnourished I am is real. I’ve questioned in the midst of these past two days of sickness: “Am I really going to be able to last eleven months?”
The temptation to focus on myself, and what I can do, is real, but the endless strength and constant love of God is even more real. The dream we’ve dreamt together is bigger than sickness.
I choose to live the rest of my life like Caleb, dreaming wild, victorious dreams with God.
What about you? Where is your focus? Are you dreaming God-sized dreams?
He wants to do the impossible through you. He wants to dream with you.
And when you ask Him what He sees in you, don’t worry about the mind-blowing answer He gives. He says that you can do all things through Him because He has all the strength you need (Philippians 4:13).
