dreams: when desires are refined in the fire of faith and obscurity

Do you have dreams, my friend? Unfulfilled desires or thwarted goals? Oh, me, too. It’s a divine gift to want to create, to build. But sometimes we are derailed along the way and discouragement soon sets in. We can lose heart when our hopes, our art and projects come to nothing.

As a writer, poet and blogger, I desire to build prayerful, supportive friendship. I aim to inspire and encourage, choose fostering community over commerce, and hope to have an engaged audience that will happily read my work because they trust me and believe in my message.

All those things take time, and are very much dependent on God. Although I have lots of creative desires and projects on file, I long for engagement, connection and friendship above all. My greatest desire and mission here is to help, bless and encourage others in their journey of life and faith.

Therefore, if God calls me to rest myself and my words for an unforeseen period of time, I’m learning not to see the laying down and coming aside as a rejection. It’s really more of an invitation to abide, a welcome embrace of love, a gift of grace from God to my weary body and mind.

“Hidden hopes. Hidden dreams. Hidden gifts. All of us are acquainted with chapters in life when our visible fruitfulness is pruned back, our previously praiseworthy strengths become dormant, and our abilities are unnoticed by the watching world.” — Alicia Britt, Anonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years… and Yours

Does it mean that I don’t want to grow my blog, sell more copies of my books, write and publish more work, and reach a larger audience with my words? Not at all. But that’s a hope, rather than my main motive in life right now.

Building toward our future goals takes time and effort but sometimes we can be short of both. Or God intervenes to remind us what He would prefer us to build, and the secure foundation He wants us to lay our lives on instead.

Here’s the thing, it’s absolutely fine to have big, God-shaped dreams, but they must be surrendered to Him. As we trust God to give us the desires that are in His heart for us, we can rest those dreams in Him, as we also work toward their fulfilment.

So what’s the major thing to major on? It will be as varied as we are, and alter according to our stage of life, world view, priorities and perspective. As a woman of faith, who also happens to have M.E, chronic illness, weakness and weariness as a continuous state, taking care of myself and my health is a top priority.

Above that obvious physical need, I’m seeking to build up my faith by strengthening and shoring up the fortifications which enable me to stay strong on the inside, at least. It’s invisible but vital work, aided by endurance and prayer.

During my times of retreating from online busyness for my health and soul’s sake, I’ve often felt lost and anonymous. Because who are we without a strong presence and visible digital footprint? The world would have us believe we’re invisible and unimportant, but that’s not true.

Being small, relatively unknown or anonymous doesn’t sound like much fun, yet it can be a wonderful spiritual training ground. We learn to lean on God, and have faith in His dreams and desires for us, instead of relying solely on ourselves.

Here, in the land of relative obscurity in the world’s eyes, fresh dreams and desires can be birthed and given wings. We begin to better sense God’s ways and timings, and learn how to cooperate with Him to bring them to fulfilment. What dreams are you hoping to be fulfilled? I’d love you to share below so I can pray for you. 🙂 ❤

“As with a child in the womb and a seed in the ground, God’s unanticipated move of hiding Jesus granted him protected, undisturbed room to be and become. From God’s perspective, anonymous seasons are sacred spaces. They are quite literally formative; to be rested in, not rushed through—and most definitely never to be regretted.” — Alicia Britt, Anonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years… and Yours