If You Are Gonna Dream... Dream BIG!

I've always been a dreamer. I'm the kid that sat in class staring out the window day dreaming. I am the one who spent hours throwing a ball against the wall and fielding the grounders dreaming that I was Ernie Banks or Dal Maxville, going to be the next great shortstop to play baseball. I the one who watched a concert and dreamed of being up on that stage. I always had big plans, and idea for a business... always thinking, always dreaming. In fact, the mother of my best friend in high school nick-named me "Dreamer." OK... some of my younger "dreaming" was more in the lines of fantasy, but some of it was real dreaming, real hopes and things that I still hold on to and I am believing for.

OK, so here I am at 50, and I am still the "Dreamer," only my dreams have changed somewhat. Today, I dream of doing great things for God. I'm believing for what would seem impossible in man's eyes. The church where I pastor is growing. We've been seeing new people just about every week. We've see lives changed. It is an exciting time. We've been averaging more than double of what we were just a year ago and it looks and feels different at church. Yesterday, someone commented to me, "Isn't it great to see your dreams fulfilled?" I laughed at them and told them, "We have not yet even gotten close to my dream." The person said to me, "Well, you have big dreams, don't you?" I responded, "If you are gonna dream, dream big!"

A long time I ago I began to realize that so often in Christian circles we settle for so much less than what God wants to give us. I wants to give us hundreds and we settle for 90. He wants to give us the city and we settle for a small neighborhood. I think about the time when Elisha told Joash to smite the ground with the arrows and Joash took the arrows and hit the ground 3 times. The man of God chastised him and told him that he should have hit the arrows to the ground 5 or 6 times. It is a picture of how we settle for "good enough" instead of what God really has planned for us. Israel would only get a partial victory instead of being totally free because Joash "settled." I don't know about anyone else, but I am dreaming big. I've had people tell me that our building won't hold what I have asked for. Guess what? It won't! I know that as a nation we are spiraling into a recession, but I am believing God for hundreds, and believing that he will provide the funds for a building to house them in. I'm smitting the daylights out of my arrows folks!

I realized long ago that a dream becomes a reality because somebody wants it to be. It becomes a reality because someone dares to dream a dream. Someone dares to believe in that dream and they set out to make that dream become a reality. I'm dreaming... and believing for the hundreds. I'm believing for a youth group of more than 100. I'm believing for kids church that reaches 100 plus. I'm dreaming big, because I serve a great big God, and it is his desire that not one should perish... and I want to be used by him to make a difference in my little part of the world.
Yeah... I am a dreamer.

I was sitting here thinking about when my daughter was a baby. I made up a little song that I sang to her as I rocked her. Part of it went, "So close your eyes and go to sleep, dream a dream with me.... cause when you dream a dream, you can do most anything." I believe that with God, ALL things ARE possible, and I am dreaming... and I am dreaming BIG!