The road to your dreams:
God's or yours?

by Caroline Santing

What do you dream of becoming? Famous, beautiful, a brilliant football player, a killer lawyer, a multibillionaire? Do you dream of being a parent with a couple of kids, the perfect wife or husband, and living a great big/small house? Maybe you plan to be an aid worker and want to give your life up for others. Have you got your future planned out? Are you on your way to fulfilling your dreams, have you got all the right subjects picked, are you in the right college? Have you set the right goals for the year 2008 that will bring you closer to your dream life?

Dreaming is great. I guess this is one time of your life that we really get to dream, when we haven’t really “started” living yet. (Not that we aren’t living now) We’re always being pushed to do well. Do get our A’s and B’s. To aim for the stars so that we’ll at least reach the sky.

Have you ever realised how much our lives are pushed towards making money and being great. We’re pushed to do well at school so that we can get into a good college; so that we can get a good degree; so that we can get good jobs and make loads of money.

There’s nothing wrong with being famous, rich or poor, doing aid work, working in a sky scraper or walking the cat walk as long as it is what God wants you to do. There are two possible scenarios here:

A)
Kate decides that she wants to be rich. She works for hours and hours doing her business homework, learning an extra language, studying really hard for her leaving cert. She spends hours working every day, including Sunday, no time for church. Her bible stays on her shelf gathering dust (“sorry God, I’ll catch up with you later”) as she pours all her energy into her studies. She gets her well deserved points after her leaving cert and has a wide range of courses all beckoning her call.

She takes her pick, choosing the one most likely to bring her to the top of the business ladder. She repeats the normal order of working hard. She gets her dream job, and spends her hours impressing her grouchy boss. She buys a fancy apartment in the most expensive area of Dublin. She acquires a spoilt poodle. For fun she shops in Penneys for fear that her money will run out, although her fancy business suits come from Brown Thomas (she has to impress the boss).

On her 40th birthday she reaches the €1,000,000 mark and celebrates on her own by popping a bottle of champagne. She drinks it all. Afterwards she heads down to the local off license and buys a lot of the strongest stuff available. She drinks herself stupid trying to fill the hole in her life. She tries different methods of filling the gap in her heart. Boyfriend (I know she’s old but still), travelling the world, donating 100,000 to an orphanage in the developing world. Eventually she jumps off a bridge in an attempt to rest and fill the emptiness off her life.

B)
Same Kate different attitude. Kate would absolutely love to be rich, but she knows that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) She prays about her future and her love for money and sets at least 30 minutes a day apart for Jesus. She works hard, but does make it to church on Sunday (and the prayer meetings on Wednesday). She prays before her exams and God helps her and she gets great points. Loads of courses beckon. She prays about which course to take and feels led to go into accounting. There she meets the guy of her dreams (the one God had prepared for her.), they get married after college and have a few kids- Sarah, David and Michael.

Kate is always in a hurry, dividing her time between cleaning, mothering, helping out at church and her part time job. She still cherishes her half an hour with God every morning. On her 40th birthday her husband’s cancer results come back positive. He lives in pain for another year and a half and eventually goes to be with Jesus. Through all her grief she grows closer and closer to Jesus. When all her kids are grown and gone she goes into the ministry full time, working as a evangelist in South America. She reaches the age of 65 and dies due to malaria as a result of her efforts.

Same girl, different lives.

Okay the stories may be a bit overdramatic, but I needed to use the polar opposites to make my point. Life works out for the best when you’re living the life planned for you. The bible says that “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28). Therefore you can trust that if you do love God, then he will give you a life (purpose) full of meaning and blessings (that can be spiritual or material). God is working everything out for your good.

I don’t think there is a perfect formula to knowing what Gods dreams for you are, I don’t think it’s always going to be obvious what choice you should make. I do know that if you ask God and walk along with him he will show which way you should go. (For more about walking with God read this article.)

For example, when my sister had to decide what she was going to do after school, she looked at all the courses, and thought of what she actually wanted to do with her life. The only thing she could think of doing was to serve God and read her bible and stuff. So she got Dad’s approval to go to Bible College. Then she started praying for the right college. I can remember looking at all these websites on the internet and going through the statements of faith with her, until finally we found a college that had the same goal as she had - to get to know God more. She just knew that that was the right college for her to go to. Even so, she didn’t rely on her feelings alone, she kept praying for it. And God did open the door, and so she will (God willingly) be going to that college next year!

The bible also says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11). God know the plans he has for you, you don’t. Keep relying on him.

It’s really important that you stay close to God and don’t wander off in independence! “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life” (Matthew 7:14), if the road is narrow, (and probably pretty difficult) I think it’s a good idea to stay as close as possible to God while walking it. The Lord is our helper, it’s really important to remember that and never to stop leaning on Him. After all he wants you to and he happens to be the greatest, strongest, wisest, most loving, most caring, most understanding, forgiving, merciful and wonderful being in existence!