Seeing Ministry Dreams Become Reality
Seeing Ministry Dreams Become Reality – Ministry Memo from Pastor Gary
Do you have a dream in your heart for ministry which has not been realized in your life? Are there times when you feel as though the God-given vision in your spirit will never come to fruition? I want to share with you a personal word today from my heart to encourage you to keep the dream alive. Personally, there are some dreams God gave to me years ago which I have yet to see become a reality for my life and ministry. Early this morning I felt prompted to add Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost for His Highest” to the various studies I use during my devotional time. I was talking with my Heavenly Father about a dream He had placed within me and asked Him to help me keep the embers of that dream burning and alive. A few minutes later I went to the devotional and God lovingly lifted me to a place of encouragement as He reinforced within me His plans and purposes. I believe this devotion is one which will also bless you today.
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Vision and Reality – My Utmost for His Highest – Oswald Chambers
“And the parched ground shall become a pool.” Isaiah 35:7
We always have visions, before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.
“Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And batter’d by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.”
God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.
The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.
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I pray that you are deeply encouraged after reading this devotion. May the Spirit of our Living God blow across the embers of the dreams in your heart and “fan them into flame” today!
-Pastor Gary
