“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy.” –Proverbs 13:12
The future belongs to those who have dreams. All great men and women have been motivated by their God-given dreams. People who have a plan and the faith to live out their dreams truly live a life of excitement and fulfillment. God wants to help us develop our full potential and bring into reality our purpose in life. He has a definite life plan for every person and He protects each of us visibly or invisibly for some exact task. That task will be the true significance and glory of the life that has accomplished it.
Our job then is to use our time wisely. The only way we are going to fulfill our God-sized dream is if we wisely use the time we have and maximize every moment.
Why is there so much talk about dreaming big and having vision? There is awesome power in having a dream! It fuels a burning desire deep within that creates energy – and this energy propels leaders into action.
Leaders who have a powerful vision or dream will energize everyone around them. What would you do with your life if you knew it was impossible to fail at what you attempted? God begins every potential miracle in your life with a faith picture born of the Holy Spirit. This invisible idea – this vision – will eventually give birth to a visible, tangible fulfillment.
Our dreams and visions begin as undeveloped pictures deep within our hearts and minds – things we can see that God wants to do in the future. The more that leaders feed on the Word of God with understanding, the more focused they become. The purpose of God becomes progressively clearer as they articulate the biblical vision.
Vision creates a bright future, increases our motivation level and supplies a mighty stimulus to work hard for fulfillment. Vision will start you on the path to your destiny. It seals destiny. As Socrates said, “We have a better chance of hitting the target if we can see it.”
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” –Booker T. Washington
Leaders are finishers. They see the future as it should be, they set to work on making that future picture reality now and they stick with it until it is complete. Leaders need to be dreamers – people of rare gifting for intensity and focus, who will dedicate their entire lives to the dream.
We will always move in the direction of our most dominant thought. God has given us an invisible machine inside your mind that has the power to create God-given vision and high-definition pictures of destiny. This is called our imagination. You see a picture of something that is not yet real in the physical world but is real in your mind. What must you do to cross the finish line and see your dream happen?
Let the dream God gives you become the dominant passion in your life. Allow it to fill every available space within and crowd out every distraction and all adversity. When you have a specific target and a specific faith goal, team members can more easily pull all their strength together because they are pursuing a unified vision. Distractions and detours are easier to identify and avoid when you know the main goal.
Read books that stretch your thinking capacity. Dare to reach for the companionship of great thinkers. Invest in good books. Read autobiographies of great men and women who accomplished their dreams. Absorb their spirit and the victorious attitudes that have driven them to success. Get inspired by their sacrificial living and their never-give-up attitude.
Make great plans and do them. King Solomon, who built the most splendid temple and enjoyed a beautiful dwelling place wrote this about dreams: “For a dream cometh through the multitude of business” (Eccles. 5:3, KJV). Many leaders have great dreams but no plans to bring them to reality. Most people plan more for a one-week vacation than they do for their life journey!
Create blueprints for the dream God has given you. God loves a planner; He respects people who think enough of their dreams to create plans for their attainment.
As the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of finishing.” We are called to finish the vision – totally.
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