A short while ago, I was awakened early having just gotten home from the Dominican Republic. I had never gone to the Caribbean and had my days and nights messed up before. For about two days I had been getting up very early in the morning and sleeping at weird times of the day. It was at precisely 3:33 AM on one of those particular mornings of which I'm referring.
It is so important for us to pay attention to little things. It was 3:33 AM, and I said, "Lord, you're trying to tell me something in this." And the Lord said, "Jeremiah 33:3." The Lord knows that I'm seeking Him for answers, instruction, and direction. He says in His Word, "Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know." To this I said, "God, You're just so good and so timely that You would use something like my alarm clock at 3:33 in the morning, wake me from a sound sleep, and say, "Look at Jeremiah 33:3." That word brought such comfort, and I want to share it with you because a lot of times we miss God in the small things. We overlook Him because we're looking for something so fantastic; we're expecting God to put handwriting on the wall, which He did for Nebuchadnezzar. You are not Nebuchadnezzar! To that you ought to say, "Praise the Lord!" God doesn't always put the handwriting on the wall. We wished He would, but He doesn't. It's not necessary. He communicates with us through His Word and by His Spirit.
While I was in the Dominican recently, I felt like God was speaking a word for us, and I believe this is a word for you. God is looking for dreamers. He wants you to be one. Throughout Scripture and various places, we see examples of God's dreamers and the things they did as a result of what I'm going to call, "Dreaming for God."
We have to be careful not to limit ourselves because we seem to dream and live in black and white. My wife and I are both very black and white individuals. What I am referring to is "absolutes," and we believe that God is a "God of Absolutes." I believe that God doesn't always want us to dream in black and white, He wants us to begin to consider the gray area. This will expand our thinking.
Some people like to say the cliché, "You have to think outside of the box." Whoever said that there was a box? Who established the box? Who put your life in the box? God did not. There are some things that need to be established in our hearts, and I'd like to pose some questions for you to answer. They may sound simple, but I'd really like you to think upon them, meditate, and then answer.
Do you believe that God knew you and called you before He formed you in your mother's womb? Now that was a word for Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). A lot of people think that that was only for Jeremiah, that it isn't relative for us today. I say, "Well, I believe it's as relevant for me as it was for Jeremiah because if God knew Him before He formed him in the womb, He must have known the rest of us as well. He says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." I knew you. God knew you! God knew me before He formed me in my mother's womb. And before I was born, I was sanctified. What does that mean? I was set apart. I was dedicated unto God. Wow!
I've told you this story before that my mother, a young Catholic girl, got married at the very early age of sixteen, became pregnant the first year of marriage, and in short order became the mother of three children. In fact, some of you know that my brother was born on the day my parents were married . . . exactly one year later. And so four years after that, I was born. They didn't know if I was going to live or die for the first six months of my life as I was very sick. My mother, this little Catholic girl, just lifted me up to God and said, "God if you'll save his life, I'll give him to you." Well, that was kind of a prayer of sanctification. Little did she know, I believe, that the Lord had already sanctified me in her womb. Maybe that's why there were such attacks. I don't know, but the devil loves to attack that which God has sanctified in your life. He loves to attack what God has ordained as holy.
So, I believe that if God knew one before He formed him or her, then it stands to reason that He knew each of us, even before we were conceived in our mother's womb. Therefore, even before He formed us, He must have had a purpose and a plan in mind! He didn't just throw a bunch of stuff into a bag in the mother's womb, mix it up, and wait to see how it would come out! The Scripture says that you and I are His workmanship, His craftsmanship. How good can God make something? When God created the earth, how good was it? When He created man, how good was he? It was good! It was exactly the way that God wanted it to be.
Please join me as we look at "Dreaming for God" for the next several blogs; I believe it will bless your life and expand your thinking to accommodate God's big dreams for your life. Today is a great day to remember that He is ALIVE; He has risen, and He is breathing new life into each one of us every moment. We just need to breathe it in!
~ pg
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