Are We There Yet? Fear's Demands on Faith

Back in my day, we didn't have all those new-fangled technologies to dull our senses and lull us into a comatose silence during long road trips.

We might--MIGHT--have had a cassette player or CD walkman, but once your batteries died (which was shortly after you left your driveway) you were left without your tunes and subjected to whatever hillbilly nonsense your parents were listening to on the car radio.

As a result, I often found myself looking for signs that we were near our destination.  Every landmark and road sign was subject to my analytical scrutiny and speculation.

It dawned on me the other day as I was thinking about the ways that FEAR has impacted my FAITH over the years that the "are we there yet" angle is one that FEAR has played a major role in.

Let me explain.

GOD's plan for our lives often invites us to interpret His motives or the deeper meaning.  Every blessing or struggle is viewed as a window into God's character and motives.  And we then begin listening to our own (often fearful) interpretative spin on things.


And as we FOCUS on the TRIVIAL we DIMINISH the ETERNAL.

Now, I'm not saying that questioning and reasoning has no place in our faith.  In the right context it is one of the ways that God grows our faith in Him.

HOWEVER, if we apply the wrong interpretations and come to the wrong conclusions, we might find ourselves fearful of a God that we define in our own failed logic.  If the obstacles in our path become larger or more significant than the One who made the path, we will have officially handed over the wheel to FEAR.

Moses had some issues here in seeing the big picture.

"What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'the LORD did not appear to you?'"

This is from Exodus 4 when Moses is conversing with the burning bush.  The LORD has to walk Moses through some seemingly endless scenarios as Moses inundates Him with a stream of "what if" questions that any person who wrestles with FEAR will identify with.

Now, it's easy to mock Moses' cowardice from the comfort of our living room.  Dude was literally speaking with the LORD via a burning bush.  What is there to worry about?  How could you diminish the power of God by focusing on your problems when you are standing on Holy Ground?

Simply put, Moses allowed his fear of failure to distort God's message and character.  And we do the same thing every day.

When we lose a job.

When we have a fight with a loved one.

When someone betrays us.

When terminal illness strikes our family.

When prayers go unanswered.

With his FEARS dwarfing his view of the LORD, Moses continues to throw "what if" scenarios at the great I AM.  #SMH

Finally, in Exodus 4:11 the LORD said to him, "Who gave human beings their mouths?  Who makes them deaf or mute?  Who gives them sight or makes them blind?  Is it not I, the LORD? Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

The problem with my trying to interpret the landmarks and signs on our long road trips is that I had no idea where we were actually going and was reading into those signs and landmarks with a distorted or uninformed view of reality.

The problem with Moses was that he was reading into the future what his own fear of failure saw instead of what the LORD behind the burning bush did.

I did not, at the age of 10, know how to drive a car.  My dad did.  And yet I spent many a minute in the back seat questioning where we were going and how close we were as if I did have that knowledge.

Moses didn't yet fully understand who God was.  He was trying to figure out the entire plan at the beginning because his FEAR OF FAILURE was bigger than his FAITH.  And here's the kicker--many of the worries that Moses brings up to God did actually happen.  And God knew that they would.

But the plan wasn't necessarily that Moses would know all the details from the beginning and could trust in the plan.  It was that when the plan did go awry, he knew enough about his HEAVENLY FATHER to LEAN INTO HIM during those trials and experience a new intimacy and understanding not possible via a pre-journey lecture.

FAITH is ACTIVE, FEAR is PASSIVE.

The lens of FEAR turns the PATH that God has mapped out before us into a pothole-filled trail of terror and lead us to a life of apathy and inaction.

FEAR doesn't want you to act because in doing so, you will grow in your CONFIDENCE and FAITH in the LORD and FEAR will be weakened and diminished.

FEAR focuses on life's obstacles, FAITH focuses on the character of God.

FAITH isn't about always knowing exactly where we are going or how things will turn out, it is trusting the God who does.

This is why Moses, so terrified in Exodus 4 at the burning bush, was able to calmly rally the Israelites standing in between an advancing army and the Red Sea.  It was not because Moses suddenly had no FEAR but because HIS GOD was much larger than the "what ifs" of life.

Instead of asking if we are there yet, perhaps we should just sit back and enjoy the ride and kick FEAR to the curb.

Beautiful Sunset: A Lesson on Faith

Sometimes following Jesus is like a rainy day on a vacation.

Let me explain.

We all know that FAITH is believing in something that we can't see, and yet most Christians I know are constantly looking for signs or confirmation about things. Even the most certain of Jesus followers will find a need for confirmation at some point.  We want to know that we are right.  We want to know that God's real.  We want to know that He hears us.   That He cares.  That there's really a plan.

And sometimes we can read too much into things and come to the wrong conclusion.

The enemy KNOWS that your Father God has CREATED you with a PURPOSE.  And God's purpose for your life is not something that Satan will enjoy.   As a result, FEAR and DOUBT will often obscure your view and cause you to hunker down at home and miss GOD's BEAUTY.

We're currently on vacation in Naples, Florida.  It's beautiful here.  I'm pretty sure heaven will look like this.  One of our favorite things to do is to go to either the Marco Island or Naples beaches at night and watch the sun set over the Gulf.  It's truly breathtaking.  On my birthday we went to dinner on Marco Island and planned to see the sunset afterward, but it had been raining all afternoon.  It was still cloudy and foreboding.  We didn't want to pay the $8 to park if there wasn't going to be a sunset.  

We finally decided to just go for it.  And the sunset was a truly unique sunset.  It was unlike any other sunset we've seen.  The water almost looked light gray.  The sky was filled with clouds, but as the sun sank on the horizon it became partially visible near the horizon.  It looked like a painting.  It was so colorful and so beautiful that it didn't look real.

We were so focused on looking for signs of a sunset that we almost missed one of the most beautiful ones we have every seen.

A woman who was healed by Jesus probably had the same experience.  The Bible tells us that she had been "subject to bleeding for twelve years" and that she suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors.  I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like your best life now.

This woman's life was one of suffering and frustration.  All of the signs told her that her case was hopeless.  She should just accept her life of misery.  But she heard that Jesus was in town and she ignored the signs because she KNEW that He could help her:

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?' ” 

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”    MARK 5:24-34

I never considered this story from this perspective until I either read it or heard it in a sermon recently, but the reality is that the woman was healed just by touching Jesus' robe.  That could have been the end of the story.  And it would have been miraculous.  But Jesus stepped into her life in the most unexpected way.  He wouldn't let it go until she came forward and admitted that she touched Him.

Why?  It's not as if Jesus didn't know who did it.  Much like Santa, he sees everything and knows all.  So then His questioning had to be for her.   It was so that she would have a face to face conversation with her Savior.  It was so that she could shed her old identity of the sickly, downtrodden hopeless gal  and emerge as a daughter of God.

That wouldn't have happened for her if she read the signs and stayed home.  GOD has a beautiful sunset beyond your current storms.  Don't miss it.

Haughty Humility

"That person is a hot mess. At least I'm not as bad as that person."

"I'll never amount to anything.  I'm destined to fail."

I'm sure you've made at least one of those statement--even if only in your head.  Amiright?

Our society is ripe with comparisons.  Social media and a celebrity-worshipping culture have only made that worse.

And if you're like me, and I suspect, a lot of Christians, than you probably manage to simultaneously exude a haughty elitism and a humility grounded not in truth but in the lies of the enemy.

Let me explain.

So many people are convinced that life is about being good.  Good people get rewarded via karma.  Only good people can get into heaven.  Even Christians talk about doing good and being a good person as though it determines our eternal destination.

If you are a true follower of Christ, you know that is not the case.  It is not possible to earn your salvation through goodness.  Salvation is found only in Christ's redemptive work on the cross and through a contrite heart that embraces that sacrifice.

But there is something that wars against our understanding of this.  There is a voice that condemns our worth because of our actions.  And yet, as human beings, we know that our value is not ascribed.  It is intrinsic. In other words, your value and dignity are not something you have to earn.  You are born with your value and dignity.  You matter regardless of what you can do or the choices that you make.

We should be mindful of our actions and choices.  We should feel badly when we fall short in our life.  But we need to use our failures as a GPS to lead us straight to the healing power of Jesus.  His desire is our restoration and illumination.  Jesus wants us to learn from our mistakes, not be condemned by them.  He wants to take our broken vessels and restore them so that we become a beacon of light that points the way for others.

If we don't get that, we lose.  And so does the world.  If we allow our failures to condemn us into a falsely-grounded humility and despair, we will fall into complacency and our sins will magnify.  

On the other end of the spectrum, however, we need to be sure to compare ourselves to God' standard and not other people.  Sometimes it is easy to get haughty by looking upon the failures and sins of others and deciding that we are better than those people.  It can numb our awareness of our own sin and failures.  A sense of superiority flies in the face of everything Jesus did here on earth.  He was the walking personification of grace.  He never abandoned sharing truth with people about their sins and failures, but He always treated them with grace.  Except the religious leaders.  He kinda just freaked out and called them vipers.

Why is that?  Because following Jesus is about the heart.  He wants RELATIONSHIP.  He wants you to understand the TRUTH of your condition and your need for HIM.  He wants you to also extend that same grace that was extended to you to the unworthy masses around you.  In Matthew 7, Jesus cautions:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

Stop judging, Judgey McJudgey Pants.  That's how that passage is usually interpreted by well-meaning hipsters.  That's not exactly the whole point, though.  Jesus is simply cautioning against the hardening of the heart that comes with seeing yourself as MORE worthy of forgiveness and grace than others.  The admonition is not instructing you to keep the truth to yourself when you see someone sinning, but rather a reminder that you were extended grace that you didn't earn and that you should also wrap your truth-burgers for others in a cushiony roll of grace as well.

Again, this comes down to IDENTITY.  A subtle change in your alignment can harden your heart or decimate it.  A subtle shift in your view can strangle the hope out of your life or stop up the passage to compassion that God wants you to share with a world in need.

Let's truly see the world--and ourselves--through the intact lens of GRACE and TRUTH.

That Egyptian Army, Though...

One of my favorite people in the Bible is Moses.

I mean his story is a story of redemption, of fighting against the powerful on behalf of the downtrodden, of submitting to God and having a front row seat at a display of His power.

It also comes with a long time of wandering around in a dry, hot desert while leading a bunch of complaining cry-babies.  To be honest, I don't know how Moses put up with his people as long as he did.  And when he is denied entering the Promised Land because he hits a rock in anger, you have to wonder as a reader how he didn't get to that level of frustration earlier, amiright?

He goes up to talk with God on the top of the mountain and comes down and the gang is dancing around a golden cow, having totally forgotten and forsaken the powerful God who has delivered them from their oppressive slavery.

It's easy from the comfort of a 2016 existence to look at such behavior and mock them for their lack of faith or consistency.

When you dig beneath the snark of how stupid and weak these people were, you actually get a realistic and gritty depiction of how stupid and weak we are.  Just like the Israelites, our HEARTS are often COATED in FEAR.

One of my favorite passages of scripture comes during the excitement of the Exodus.  Here the Israelites have left their bondage and are on the banks of the Red Sea.  A literal pillar of fire and clouds has been leading them.  They've seen countless miracles and plagues demonstrating God's power.  And they saw the most powerful leader of their day, the Egyptian Pharaoh, lose his resolve and let them go.

I mean dude was like a defiant teen with his tremendous refusal to accept reality and submit to a greater authority.  It seemed like he would never give in.  But he finally did.  And then about 10 minutes later when he realized that his slaves were gone and that he and his boys might have to lift a finger and work.  So, he gets all confederate on the Israelites and chases after his "property."

And of course the Israelites melt into a pile of cowardly goo when they see the advancing Egyptian army.  They literally start whining that it would be better to go back and be slaves then to experience freedom with God.  (Another blog post for another time but very telling on our view of "freedom" and "slavery" when it comes to our society and submission to God!) As a response, Moses gives one of the most epic statements in the entire Bible in Exodus 14:13-14:

"Moses answered the people, 'Do not be afraid.  Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today.  The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.  The LORD will fight or you; you need only to be still.'"

Be still.  The LORD will fight for you.  Stand firm.

In fact, the pillar of smoke and fire then goes between the Israelites and the Egyptians.  And the Bible tells us that one on side it brought "darkness" and to the other side it brought "light" so that neither side went near it.  God is darkness, confusion, and foolishness to those who don't trust Him.  To those who do, however, He is a shield, a protector, a LIGHT that illuminates every aspect of life and history to make sense in a way not possible to someone not open to the things of God.

And just for kicks, God threw the mighty Egyptian army into confusion.   Then Moses lifted his hands and raised his staff and God parted the Red Sea for His people to make perhaps the most dramatic exit in the history of the world.  Oh, and then he made the Red Sea crash down onto the heads of the Egyptian army as they attempted to cross.

Pretty epic, right?

It's easy to mock the folly and fear of the Israelites as nothing but foolishness.  And it was.  However, it is a foolishness that we all share in.  Whether it is the Israelites in the desert, Peter on the water, the disciples in the boat, or those of us today fretting about our family, our finances, our health, or even just whether or not people will mock us, FEAR has played a huge part in warping our conception of God.

GOD stands ready to FIGHT for you.  You literally have to do nothing but stand firm and keep focused on HIM instead of your FEAR.  An advancing Egyptian army, or a broken marriage, or a troubled son or daughter, or a broken relationship, or a financial hardship are all pretty frightening in their own way.  They ALL, however, pale in comparison to the POWER of the GOD who is FOR YOU and WHO DELIGHTS in FIGHTING FOR YOU.

Every time we allow our FEARS to shrink our view of the unfathomable SIZE and POWER of GOD,
we allow our CIRCUMSTANCES to DEFINE our FAITH as TINY and TIMID.

FAITH is the exact opposite of FEAR, and that's why FEAR works so hard to undermine it.  The larger our faith, the smaller our fear.  So as we allow our FEAR to EXPAND, our FAITH begins to rapidly DIMINISH.

Exodus 14 ends with verse 31: "And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in Him and in Moses his servant."

Put your trust in the GOD who sees you as a BELOVED SON or DAUGHTER.  In the GOD who is LARGER than your FEARS.  In the GOD with the UNMATCHED POWER to demolish your FEARS so that you never see them again.  Let your FEAR shrink and your FAITH expand.

Don't be captive to fear.  Embrace the freedom in God's security.

Heart GPS: Consider Your Paths

I'm a sucker for a good road trip story.  Frodo and the gang on the way to Mordor.  Luke and the gang on the way to destroy the Death Star.  Chief Brody and the gang looking for a great white shark.

In the Bible, however, we see that our hearts are often linked to a journey.

Jesus and the Bible talk about the heart a lot.  We are to guard it for some reason.  It is where our treasure is. Out of it flows our true nature.  And the peace of God will guard our heart if we lean into Him.  The heart is somewhat like a GPS for our life.

Now a GPS system is great.  We use them all the time on road trips.  And usually they are good.  Sometimes--not so much.  Ours has gotten us lost before. Especially around Washington D.C.  For some reason our GPS has no idea what roads are there or not when in the DC area.  We often end up taking some random offramp into the slums of DC and driving around in circles until we find our way back with no help from our GPS.

And of course, every time we drive near DC we say "let's try to remember what the correct road is this tie because the GPS will be wrong."  And every time, we've forgotten so we follow the GPS into the heart of DC one more time.

So the damages of past hurts, of fear and doubt, can screw up your heart's GPS system and send you meandering through places you don't want to go to.

Consider the call of wisdom in Proverbs:

"I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice, bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me and making their treasuries full." Proverbs 8:20-21 

"The prudent keep their knowledge to themselves, but a fool’s heart blurts out folly... Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up...In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality." Proverbs 12:23,25,28

Now, as an English teacher, I enjoy a good motif.  Notice that in these verses that our life here on earth is likened to a a journey.  It's a path.  We either move on a good path that leads to life and immortality and a good inheritance or we move on a path of folly, anxiety and destruction.  If you're like me, you are probably humming "Life is a Highway" right about now.

So much can be said about how to end up on the right path, but the simplest directive can be found in Proverbs, and reiterated by Jesus in Matthew:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6 

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37

And like most things in the Bible, those statements are tremendously profound and true, and seemingly simple to do and yet in practice they are often so very hard to do.

And there's a reason for that.  In pop culture, you pretty much know if someone is told "whatever you do, don't do (insert instruction here)" that sometime during that movie they will do that thing.  Walk off the yellow brick road.  Feed Gremlins after midnight.  Leave before the Jedi training is done.

As human beings our heart has tremendous potential for good but it is also easily ensnared in emotions and damages that war against your very soul.  The very thing that helps us to identify God and lean into Him can also be the instrument of our undoing.

And there is no quick fix.  Yes, pray early and often.  Yes, read your Bible daily.  Yes love God and love people.  And yet, there is still something askew in the inner sanctum of your heart.  And when you least expect it, it can pop up and rip you from the path you were on.

Like Michael Scott from The Office, it can direct you to drive your car into a lake.  And that can turn you into a Michael Scott rage-monster.

The truth is like those verses in Proverbs suggest, life is a journey.  Faith is a journey.  And we usually follow our heart in determining which path to take.  Oh, and SPOILER ALERT, the Bible tells us that ALL OF US will fail at some point.  That none have succeeded in this whole right path thing for the entirety of our lives.The best thing we can do is to seek God with all of our heart, mind, and strength.  If we lean into Him and not our own understanding, we increase the likelihood that we choose the path of life.  And that's because of our own heart being strengthened by proximity to God and because of the promise in Philippians 4:7:

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

There is protection for our hearts and our lives in leaning into God instead of our own understanding and emotions.  There is a reason why God's peace will guard our hearts and minds for us.  It's because we are incapable of doing it ourselves.

The fact is, you are ALWAYS on a path to somewhere. You are never STAGNANT.  You are either skipping down a PATH OF LIFE or stumbling down a PATH of DESTRUCTION.  And sometimes, like a faulty GPS, your heart can't tell the difference.  What seems right to you in that moment, later will be the right that sent you into the lake.

Consider your paths.  Guard your heart.  Seek God and lean not into yourself, your feelings, your conceptions of people, places and things.  Let God sort it out for you.  He will guide you and make your paths straight.

Heart Wounds: Fear Leaves A Mark

Recently, I said some very harsh things to someone that I love dearly.  It was a tense conversation and something that probably needed to be addressed long ago, but as the conversation progressed, I found an intense anger rise up within me.  I ended the conversation with very angry words that I regretted saying the moment they came out of my mouth.

As I continue to strip away the damage that FEAR has done to my HEART over the years, I have discovered that FEAR generally damages your HEART in THREE MAIN AREAS:

• FEAR distorts how you SEE GOD and how you RELATE to HIM.  Fear will destroy any real intimacy you have with GOD because it will prioritize other problems and things above God. It DENIES GOD access to the broken places in your HEART and stops up the access to healing.

• FEAR damages your conception of YOURSELF and breaks the God filter that allows you to see yourself as God does.  Instead you focus on how horrible you are and allow yourself to sink into depression, and into a personal spiritual and relational paralysis.  FEAR will destroy any real self-reflection of yourself and will cause you to see yourself in a skewed light.  Instead of being able to see your flaws and learn from them to get better, you will see them as unfixable messes that make you unworthy of love.

• FEAR mutates how you see OTHERS.  You will no longer see them as God sees them.  You will see their worst qualities.  You will mock them,  You will not be capable of COMPASSION because your focus is always on yourself and your own problems.  FEAR will destroy any intimacy you might have with others.  It will make them a punching bag for your own hurt heart.  

And although I've begun to break the cycle of FEAR in my own life, I've discovered that breaking free from FEAR is a lot like becoming a Christian.  Yes, you can become a Christian in an instant, but it also will take a lifetime to actually work out what that means.  In the same manner, you can break free spiritually from FEAR in an instant, but it will take time healing some of the wounds that were inflicted on your heart from that fear.

JESUS deals with this in Matthew 15:17-19:

“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

The things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart.  And these defile them.

The focus is so often on external things, but Jesus refocuses us onto the HEART.  And the things that fly out of your mouth come from that heart.  And there's a reason.

So when you find yourself lashing out at someone and can't seem to understand why you can't control that anger, there is a reason for that.  There is an unaddressed hurt.  There is a wound that needs healing.  The same is true of others who might lash out at you.

And here's the thing--just because you've overthrown FEAR from ruling your heart, it doesn't mean that the damage is completely undone.  Just like following JESUS is a relationship that needs daily tending and leaning into Him, so does our heart need time and healing.

Too often, however, we choose to hold on to the hurts.  We don't want to let go.  We don't want to resolve it.  It's just who we are.  Deal with it.  We tell it like it is.

God's plan for you is so much bigger than that.  There's a reason that Jesus famously tells us in Matthew 6:21 that, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  What you keep in your heart and refuse to let go becomes your treasure.  It's like Gollum's "precious" in the Lord of the Rings.  If your heart's treasure is not GOD, it will destroy you.

That's why God tells us in Ezekiel 36:26 that,  "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

GOD wants to give us a new heart.  He wants to heal us from our past hurts.  He wants to restore our view of OURSELVES, our view of HIM, and our view of OTHERS so that we can embrace the plan that He has for our lives.

For some of us, we find it impossible.  God couldn't do that.  He can't use me.  He can't heal me.  This won't ever get better.  Well, that's the wounded heart speaking within you.  That isn't the voice of God.  That's the lie of the enemy planted in the fertile soil of your wounded heart.

The truth is found in 1 John 3:20: "If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."

GOD is greater than your heart.  LISTEN to HIM.  Pray to enjoy healing in your broken parts.  In fact, your restoration is meant to not just benefit you but also others.

American author Ernest Hemingway put it like this, "The world breaks everyone, and afterward many
are strong in the broken places."  The broken places of your HEART are fertile ground for GOD's HEALING and RESTORATION not just for you, but for the wonderful hurting folks that God will place in your path.  You will become STRONG in the BROKEN PLACES if you allow God to work.

It's my prayer for my recently revealed wounds.  These are wounds carried around by nearly 40 years of submitting to FEAR.  And these are wounds that can't be worked away.  They can only be LOVED away by the perfect and unfailing love of the FATHER.

Begin your path to healing today by allowing GOD to make you STRONGER in the BROKEN PLACES of your HEART.  FEAR has no place in your life.  You were born for a purpose.  Break free.

The Deferred Dream: A Sick Heart Becomes A Tree of Life

The poet Langston Hughes famously posed the question, "what happens to a dream deferred?"  He used some very gross imagery in trying to capture the impact on the heart of someone hoping for their dream to come true.  Words and phrases like "dry up like a raisin in the sun," "fester like a sore" "stink like rotten meat" and "sags like a heavy load" capture the deflating, debilitating, and outright draining impact that a deferred dream can have on a person.

The Bible puts it this way, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life," (Proverbs 13:12).  A sick heart can be the epicenter of a destroyed and broken life.  It is the battleground for the control of our very lives.  For that reason, the Bible actually talks about the heart a lot.  We are to not let our heart be troubled.  Mary treasured the things of God in her heart.  Out of our heart comes a great deal of wickedness.  Hardness of heart closes us off to God and our fellow man.  A soft heart that focuses on the things of God is often sought after.  As Christians we are supposed to "have Jesus in our hearts."


The Bible clearly refers to the heart as the core of our being.  It shapes how we see God, the world, ourselves, and others.  How we feel in our hearts can radically alter our path in life.  And that's why the Bible repeatedly urges us to guard our hearts.

And so deferring a dream has a tremendous impact on a person's life because it makes a heart sick.

For our family, we have waited 8 years for a dream to be realized.  For the past 8 years, we have wanted to move to the Atlanta area of Georgia.  It's something that I can't really explain to most people.  Having lived my entire life in New Jersey, my wife and I visited Georgia for the first time 8 years ago to see Andy Stanley's North Point Community Church and tour their children's facilities as a part of the program we do with our church up here.  We loved the church and instantly wanted to attend it, but we also felt at home in the Atlanta area.  We began thinking about moving.  From almost the moment of our first visit, we have talked endlessly of our desire to live there.  We've felt unsettled, uncertain, and uneasy living in New Jersey.  And that's not to say we didn't enjoy ourselves in New Jersey.  We have people here that we love dearly.  We always try to make every event an adventure with our family.  It's just that we felt out of place.  Our DREAM was something other than the Garden State.

Every summer as we traveled to the Atlanta area to visit, we once again had that love of the area re-ignited.  And over the years there have been job opportunities that just didn't pan out.  A few times we really thought that I was going to get the job and at the last minute it fell through.

Over the course of those 8 years, our hearts were sick.  They were heavy.  They were sagging with disappointment and a sadness that was just life-draining.

After 8 years, however, that door has now opened.  I've accepted a job in Georgia and we will be moving to the Atlanta area this summer.  We have now transitioned from the "sick heart" portion of Proverbs 13:12 to the "tree of life" phase.  And in the short week since we received the news, we have begun to say our good-byes and make plans for our new life in Georgia.  It's a time of mixed emotions, but it's a time of great HOPE and ANTICIPATION.

Ironically, we were just about to give up on our Georgia dreams when the job offer came through.  In other words, we were about to settle for "good enough."  So often in our lives we embrace mediocrity because we are afraid to pursue a dream.  We are afraid to leave our comfort zone.  We are afraid to really rely on God because secretly we don't believe that He will come through.

Our move to Georgia will not be without drama.  It's going to be hard to say our good-byes and find a place to live in the short amount of time that we have.  There will be those, intentionally or unintentionally, who will attempt to discourage us or steal our joy.  After 8 years of waiting, however, we have learned not to lean onto our own understanding, but rather to trust in the divine direction sprawling out before us. When God opens a path before you, it would be foolish not to follow.

And a dream fulfilled being equated to a "tree of life" in Proverbs makes a lot of sense.  Trees, like people, go through phases.  There are times of death and hardship during the winter, and times of great vibrancy and life in the spring and winter.  And trees, like people, need to be connected to their source.  Without roots, the trees will die.  Having our dream to move to Georgia delayed by 8 years has forced us to deepen our connection to Christ and has strengthened our faith.

As we begin this new adventure in our lives, we find ourselves strengthened, encouraged, and hopeful for the plans that are laid before us.  Deferred dreams can seem like a death sentence, but if you hold on long enough to see their arrival, you will see HOPE in its purest form.