Dreams are like seeds. They are symbolic of new life, new strategies, and fresh ideas. Dreams begin to awaken within us when we entertain a new way of thinking, a potential idea, that feels impossible to accomplish from where we stand today. They are beautiful in the beginning, naive and full of hope. The passion that breathes life into a dream feels unstoppable! When a dream is birthed, it feels like every cell in our body jumped up and down to celebrate. For a moment, we’ve caught glimpse of what we were designed to do.
When we begin to pursue a dream, we steward it with lists of goals and step by step plans, and then we courageously set a path to follow in order to achieve it. Sometimes, we risk it all. We dive in with both feet and are so devoted to the cause that we do whatever it takes to chase that dream. But the thing about dreams that no one seems to tell us, is that similar to a seed, they can bloom in ways that we never expected, or even saw coming.
It is not for the faint of heart to follow dreams. In the middle of our pursuit we will probably experience some painful failures, challenges, or set backs. At times, it can feel as though the winds are set against us, and especially in the case of multiple setbacks – we might wonder if the seed was ever ours to begin with. But what we don’t know is that those detours and disappointments that send us spiraling, are often times setting us back on track. They are rerouting us to places that we would have never chosen ourselves. A failure is often a redirect, and a challenge is renewing our strength.
Dreams were not meant to be limited to the goals, but rather the birthing of an inspiration. A longing for something that was once unattainable, an aspiration or conviction that burned within us that drove us to innovation. Goals help us to create the routes possible to see them brought to life, but they do not have the final say. If we get caught up in the “how” or even “if”, we will miss the beautiful and messy process of its formation. A dream must remain pliable, moldable, and held loosely because rarely ever does a dream bear fruit the way we planned.
A hope deferred makes the heart grow weary.
Some of us may have grown weary of our dreams, and are wondering if they were only just a fairytale. It is hard to be joyful and in celebration when hope has been deferred. We feel the weight of our lingering dreams dragging behind us like a shadow that we never understood its existence.
In fact, some of us can’t even pinpoint some of our dreams anymore. We have lost its language. Maybe we stopped listening to its call a long time ago. Too many setbacks, too much loss. It is painful to be disappointed. Our dream feels forgotten, and abandoned.
But God. He is reviving us by our dreams. He is awakening our hearts again, to remember the passion that first birthed our dream. He is watering the seed, the dreams inside of us. He is reminding us that dreams never die. They never die. They never ever die.
They may take different shape or form. They may completely alter courses, even show up in ways we would have never anticipated. But they will always carry the same thread of life, the seed that began long ago. Because dreams are birthed from our own personal design, what makes us unique – rare – and original. No one can have the same dream as me, they might share similar goals and passions, but the innovation from inside of me cannot be duplicated.
When we know that, and when we truly understand that His heart for us is Good, we will become fearless at the face of adversity. We will laugh at the setbacks. We will embrace the challenges, and hold our dreams loosely in His hands watching Him hover over them. We will not allow the circumstances or setbacks to determine our dreams fate. We will wait, and wait. And wait for Him to come and restore and redeem, and oftentimes He will redesign our path completely. And it will be good, maybe even better than we ever imagined.
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
– Cynthia Occelli
