BECOMING AN UNSTOPPABLE DREAMER OF GOD’S DREAMS

There are dreams that we want to accomplish, problems we’re hoping will turn around. Maybe it’s to see our family restored, or lose some weight, to break an addiction, to start a new mission, and so on. But sometimes as it goes on, month after month, even year after year, we don’t see anything changing.

In moments like this, it’s easy to get discouraged and think: “This is never going to happen…” “This is as good as it gets. I’ll just learn to live with it…”. We all go through disappointments, setbacks, and loss. Pain is a part of life. It’s easy to get discouraged, even bitter, and start saying things like: “Why is this happening to me?”

The key is what we do in our times of pain, since pain will change us. Every painful time, even though you don’t like it, it’s developing something in you that can only be developed in the tough times. Eventually, the pain will pass, you’ll get through it, and you will be different.

In those tough times, when you are in pain, uncomfortable, dealing with an illness or a loss, you can easily let it overwhelm you. Now how the pain changes you is up to you. You can come out bitter, or you can come out better. You can come out defeated, giving up on your dreams, or you can come out with a new passion, a new fire, excited about the new opportunities in front of you. You can become a whiner, or you can become a warrior.

The attitude of a winner

For those aiming to live God’s dream, there is no room for becoming bitter, defeated or a whiner. Jesus was clear to us: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Scripture continually reminds us that in living God’s dream, we need to be warriors. Saint Paul urges us to “fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12) and to “train yourself in godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7) in order to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). This happens with the aid of the Holy Spirit, since “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3; cf. Romans 8:9).

Scripture also reminds us that “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). It reminds us also that “The stone that the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). Everything that we might think it was useless, it was harmful, it was without any sense, at the end will turn to be the cornerstone of our lives. Just look at the life of Christ. How, after doing all that good, he ended up being crucified? He “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” But the story has not stopped there because as Saint Paul continues to explain, “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2: 6-11).

We are aware that none of us can perfectly reflect God’s goodness in the same way Christ did. But our commitment to Christ and to the work of his Spirit within us (1 Corinthians 6:19) is what enables us to grow into his likeness. This Spirit continually leads us back from our failures to live God’s dream, since “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6).