What Dreams/Goals Have You buried?
I recently
decided to go through the journals I kept as a teenager and wow what bitter
sweet memories. Reading my journals
caused me to realise that somehow, somewhere along the road of life, I packed
my dreams in a box, put them aside and later buried them. See when I was younger all I wanted to do was
write songs, poetry, sing and dance and I wouldn’t say I was spectacularly brilliant
at them but I loved to sing, I wrote amateur poetry and danced and took drama
at school. I held on to these dreams through my teenage years but something
happened along the way, because that girl who believed she could be and do anything
she wanted or dreamed of somehow disappeared. I feel so alienated from her. Where
did she go? Where did I bury my dreams and why?
When I look
at myself in the mirror all I see now is a young adult who is scared to dream, afraid
to fail, scared to try. Everyday I wake up and choke that little girl. I give
myself a hundred and ten reasons why it’s a bad idea to go after these dreams.
I have become my own worst enemy! If I am not unfairly comparing myself to
others, I am talking down at myself. I tell myself, ‘you can’t write or sing,
so don’t bother’ or ‘these things are for the people in the world, I am in the
world, not of it’ or ‘if I go after these dreams, I will become like the people
in the world, I will stop pursuing spiritual living and become prideful and
boastful, so to prevent that lets forget about this dream’. HOW DARE YOU! I want to stare at myself in the mirror and
scream ‘HOW DARE YOU!’
Yes, I have
seen a lot of gifted and talented men and women in the faith who have become
prideful, people raised in the church, who now deny God and have turned to everything
worldly. That scares me! I would rather lose my dream, be unhappy, anything than
lose my relationship with God or deny God and turn to the world.
But, since when did God say it’s okay to be cowardly
and faithless? Since when did God start delighting in people who don’t believe
and obey His Word? Didn’t David write poetry? Didn’t he dance and play the harp?
And who told me it was okay to compare myself with others? What do I stand to
gain in doing that?
You see, because
I told myself “I am not good enough, I am not like this person I could never
succeed. People will laugh at me in my face and behind my back if they knew
this was my dream” I didn’t truly invest the time, resources in developing
myself to become better at what I love to do. I buried my dreams, tried to
justify it and made no attempt to develop myself in these areas. Instead I
settled for singing quietly and timidly in the church choir, “hey at least am
still singing, so am serving God!” I settled. “The choir will do”, I reasoned. I
was afraid whenever the choir director will ask me to come to the front, take a
mic and sing into it.
Paul, Apostle
of Jesus said to Timothy “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an
example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in
purity. Do not neglect
your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid
their hands on you”. Then in his second
letter to Timothy, it seemed as though Timothy forgot what Paul told him so Paul
repeated it again saying “...I remind you
to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my
hands for the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power,
love and self-discipline”.
If
you are like me and have buried your dreams or settled when you know there is
more, please I plead with you, don’t give up! Please join me, let us give our
dreams a try. Get your shovel and dig up that dream, that vision, that goal.
Don’t give up! If we fail, we fail! But if we don’t try, what a great tragedy
that will be! I plead with you, yes you! Try...Don’t give up!
I have prayed
to God about this and I continue to pray, I ask God for discernment and spirit
if wisdom, and his guidance because more than living my dream, I want to live for
Him. I want to follow Christ and obey His Word.
*And if you
don’t know Christ Jesus and you are reading this blog, I just want to say, the
first step to fulfilling your full potential in life starts with Christ. That’s
the ultimate truth!
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