on dreaming and becoming

T

he concept of having a picture in your mind as work toward your goals goes all the way back to the Old Testament. In Genesis 13:14-17 the Lord appears to Abraham (who at that point was still known as Abram) and says, “Look as far as you can see in every direction. I am going to give all this land to you and your offspring as a permanent possession. And I am going to give you so many descendants that, like dust, they cannot be counted! Take a walk in every direction and explore the new possessions I am giving you.”

Talk about having a clear picture in your mind of where it is you are going. I don’t think the Lord could have made it any clearer than that. But there was one problem – Abram didn’t have any descendants and he was getting older. With a wife who was barren, all he had to hold on to was a picture and a promise from God. It was many years later when that picture began to take the shape of reality for Abram. It is my earnest belief that God gave him that picture so he would stay motivated and wouldn’t lose heart.

Years later, in Genesis 37, Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph began having a series of God-given dreams. On more than one occasion he dreamed that his brothers would one day bow down to him. For the eleventh son out of twelve, the concept was ridiculous. Even his father, who favored Joseph, grew angry with him when he shared his dream. The dream was even part of what prompted his ten older brothers to sell him into slavery. Thirteen years, one long prison sentence, and one life-threatening famine later, Joseph’s dream came true when he was number two to Pharaoh in Egypt and his brothers came to Egypt begging for food. I’m almost positive the dream crossed his mind more than once during his prison stint, especially since God had given Joseph the divine gift of interpreting dreams.

    Both Abraham and Joseph were given pictures to hold on to as a way of staying motivated for the long gap of time between receiving the pictures and receiving what those pictures represented. The reasons for this is probably the same reason God occasionally take His sweet time before letting us realize our dream as well: We must become ready to receive the picture and fulfill the dream.

The Process of Becoming

            Most of us have read, or at least have heard of, Magery Williams’ classic children book The Velveteen Rabbit. In the book there is a particularly moving scene where the rabbit (a child’s toy) ask the old gray horse (also a child’s toy) how you become one of the boy’s favorite and most loved animals. And his answer was, “It doesn’t happen all at once…. You become. It takes a long time.”

            It’s the same with us. We are constantly in the process of becoming. We have no control over that. We do, however, control who it is we become. Many times we must be made ready for what lies ahead before we can receive it. Sure, we can start with a picture of what it is we want and what it is we believe God wants for us. But just because we hold a picture in our mind doesn’t mean we are ready for it.

            Before I (Michael) married – or even met – Shannon, I held a picture of what I wanted the woman I married to be like. One bad experience was all it took for me to make some very specific adjustments to my list of what I was looking for. But I had refined that list long before I was ready for Shannon to come walking into my life. Sure, I used to ask (and sometimes even beg) God to bring the woman He had for me quickly, but for a time that prayer went unanswered.

            Actually, He did answer that prayer. I just didn’t like the answer I was waiting. Not many of us like to be told “not yet”. At first that answer can seem even worse than a no. At least with a no you can give up hope, grieve the death of a dream, and move on to something else. With a “not yet”, you are forced to wait. And you will wait in vain if you do not actively work on the art of becoming.

            Becoming what? you may ask. Becoming who you want to be, who God wants you to be, and who you need to be before some of these huge pieces can start coming together in your life. I am not talking about outward things here. I am talking about matters of the heart. This sense of becoming is an inward process - one that is centered on your growth in Christ and your character. It is not about who you appear to be about who you really are. When it comes down to it, most of us will admit that there have been moments during our twenties where we looked in the mirror and wondered who we are.

            Sure we all want to feel grown-up and like we have it all put together. But deep down there are many moments when we don’t feel like we have any of that. WE don’t know who we are. We have only a vague idea of where we want to go, but most of the time we don’t have the slightest idea of how to get there. Moments like this are excellent starting places for the process of becoming. You can’t really become anything authentic when you are pretending you are something you are not, so these brief windows of vulnerability are good for your souls.

           Many times it is in the moments we have the least amount of clarity about what we are supposed to do, and what we should do, that we can be the most honest about what it is we really want to do. The process of becoming goes hand in hand with the concept of dreaming. In order to become you have to dream wide. Although I certainly don’t have all of the answers, I can offer a few suggestions on how to jump-start the becoming process in your life…

 

(Taken from “Challenge Point #8:Motivation – Do I Really Think I can?” pp 128 – 132, Life.Now by Shannon and Michael Primicerio.)

 

 

"You've got to 'be' before you can 'do', and you've got to 'do' before you can 'have'."

 

- Zig Ziglar

 

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Something I read which I found to be motivational.