Troublesome TopicDREAM BIG AND PRAY BIG

God loves it when we dream big dreams for Him and with Him, pray big prayers and take big steps of faith toward those dreams. He rewards that pattern if it is accompanied by the following conditions:

We must dream big dreams for God’s glory, not for our own aggrandizement. In fact, we need to keep ourselves out of it as much as possible. Just because dreams are big does not mean they are godly; they need to focus on His glory, not our reputations.

The other condition is that we need to allow God to be God by not telling Him how to work out the details. If we dream big dreams that grow the kingdom of God (the rule of God in people’s hearts) but try to work out every detail in our heads and pray only for the details we have worked out, we are not letting God be God and He is less likely to honor our big dreams. If God has given you a vision for something, pray along the lines of what God has given you, work toward that end, but allow God to change any part of the plans you have made.

If we dream big dreams that are all about allowing Him to show His glory, kindness and holiness, and if we let God decide how best to bring this dream about, He will usually answer prayers related to it with a “Yes!”

There are many stories of missionaries and other Christian leaders that serve as examples of this pattern. I highly encourage you to read biographies of godly servants who have gone before us; you will find them both challenging and encouraging.

You may have heard of George Muller, the one who had an orphanage in England. Did you know that he did not start the orphanage because the orphans had needs but because he believed it would be a good way for God to bring much glory to Himself? With God’s glory as his purpose, he dreamed big dreams, prayed big prayers and kept a journal of the times God answered specific requests – 50,000 of them in 63 years of ministry (according to his son-in-law who added up the specific answers to specific prayers that George had recorded in his journal).

God loves it when we follow the pattern of God-size dreams, prayers that seem impossible, an unwavering faith for the impossible, and the obedience to take crazy risks in order to allow God to show what He can do. So go for it, but make sure you are doing it for Him, not for you, and that you don’t tell God how to make it all work out.

The next lesson is CHOOSE WATER FROM A DEEP WELL