Recently a friend of mine asked this question on her Facebook page: How big is the gap between the life you're living and the one you want to be living? I wonder how many people are truly living their dreams. Perhaps some have achieved earlier dreams and now they want something more, while others are still struggling to reach their desired milestones. The truth is that there is always something getting in the way of our dreams, and we have to find our way around it if we want to succeed.
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I often include Jeremiah 29:11 as a reference in my posts. I do so because it is a verse that clearly states that God wants what is best for us. He is not an ogre up in the sky playing games with our lives. He knows that we have dreams because He is the one who placed them within us, but He also has a higher purpose.
The people of Israel certainly didn’t dream of being exiled to Babylon, and they didn’t intend to stay long if they could help it. Jeremiah the prophet sent them a letter to say that they would be there for 70 years, so they might as well settle down, build houses, plant crops and do their best to help the Babylonians to be prosperous. When their time of exile was over, God would restore them to their land. (Jeremiah 29:5-7, Jeremiah 29:10)
Seventy years! Can you imagine how many doubts about God would run through your mind in that amount of time? God planned to give the exiles a future and a hope, prosperity and not harm, but these plans were not immediate. And they were part of a bigger plan that applies to us too. God’s bigger plan was that the people of Israel would learn to turn to God, to seek Him with all their heart. (Jeremiah 29:12-14, Deuteronomy 30:9-10)
So what should we do when we encounter obstacles on the way to our dreams? I think the most important thing we can do is to remember God’s higher purpose—we need to trust and rely on Him. Then I think that we need to continue to work to make the best of our circumstances, and to help those around us, as Jeremiah instructed the exiles to do. In time, we will get past the obstacles and back on the road to our dreams.