Episodios

  • What about Your Dream? // Living Your Dreams, Part 10

    What about Your Dream? // Living Your Dreams, Part 10
    Sep 26 2025
    Over these last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at what it means to live out our big dreams in life. But what about your dream? The one that God’s created just for you. What does that look like? Good to be with you again today on this Friday, end of another week. These last two weeks we’ve been chatting about living out the big dreams that God lays on our hearts, and I’m always conscious when you talk about dreaming, that, well, we’re all at different places in life. Some people are on top of the world at the moment that might be you. Your life might be going on just wonderfully well. On the other hand, you may be in the depths of despair. You may be coming out of it, on the way to being on top of the world. Or well maybe you were on top of the world last month and you feel like life is slipping a bit. We’re all at different places on that roller coaster of emotions and life. I heard from the vice president of a large, successful, global organisation recently, it’s based in the U.S.A. And he said this, “Berni, I have ten years left in the job and I’m kind of laying out my priorities. I want to do a bit of dreaming. What should I achieve? What do you think?” He asked me the question. So I gave him an opinion that jolted him, it was something he didn’t expect. And so it’s Friday. We always like to look at the subject that we’ve been talking about during the week from the perspective of someone who’s asked a question. And today we’re doing that in relation to this man who is the vice-president of international operations in a large, global, very successful organisation. Now this man is a mature Christian I’ve known him for many years. He’s been walking with the Lord all his life, serving God. And he asked my opinion in the early stages of a process of dreaming. And it’s a good thing to do. He said, “Look, I’ve got ten years before I retire. I’d like to map out what’s my dream for these next ten years. I just don’t want to sit in the chair. I’d like to achieve some stuff. What’s my dream, what are my aims? When I retire what would I like to look back on over these ten years?” A really good thing to do. But as is often the way in the early stages. We don’t have all the pieces. We don’t know how all of the pieces of that dream fit together. We need to deal with the ambiguity and the uncertainty. When I looked at his dream, I read through some of the things he had there. Somehow to me the pieces were too small. They were too operational. They were too much about his organisation rather than the people that he was wanting to help. So this is how I answered his e-mail. In helping you put some of the pieces of the puzzle in place, I’d first like you to tell me what sort of a dream do you have in mind? I mean, is this a dream of relative safety, bite sized in achievable chunks? Flags outside the office, notches on the belt as it were to help you ride out the last ten years of your job with satisfaction? Or is it a big dream? One that’s so large and so unachievable without the Lord that it lies utterly outside your personal comfort zone? It’s exciting and terrifying all at once. I don’t mean to be unkind in asking the question, but I think that when we’re dreaming it’s an entirely healthy question to ask. In fact, it’s the question. Psalm 2:8 says: Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. Now for someone in your role, there’s one heck of a dream. Tell me, what sort of a dream do you have in mind? He sent me an e-mail back saying, “I wish you’d stayed in bed this morning.” But he said, “You know something? You’ve asked me exactly the right question.” And so now he’s gone away to think about his dream. Big dreams are always outside our comfort zones. We have a big God. We have a huge God. A God who loves this world so much that He has huge plans to use small, ordinary, fallible people like you and me to touch the world with his love. What about your dream? Let’s just focus on your dream for a minute. What does that look like? When you look back at the end of your life on the time between this moment and that, what would you like to have achieved? What would you like to have done? That’s an interesting question and it’s a question I believe that we should all ask. But let’s begin with the here and now. First question. Are you satisfied with life right now? The way that life is going, what you’re doing, how you’re spending your time, how the energies are being spent? How satisfied are you with your life right now? The chances are that if you’re living out that one thing that God made you to do, you’ll have a sense of deep satisfaction. But if you have a dream out there somewhere, and you’ve never stepped towards it, you’ve never said, ‘I’m going to live that dream.’ My hunch is that your level of satisfaction is pretty low. The statistics say that ...
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    10 m
  • Beyond Your Wildest Dreams // Living Your Dreams, Part 9

    Beyond Your Wildest Dreams // Living Your Dreams, Part 9
    Sep 25 2025
    Each one of us has some big dream for our lives – woven into our DNA by God. But sometimes – we feel so inadequate. And that dream – well it looks so big! Great to be with you again today. For the last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about living out the big dreams for our lives. We’ve been doing that because I believe that God has an amazing plan for each one of us and He has an amazing plan for this world. And His plan is to use ordinary, fallible people like you and me to reach other ordinary, fallible people with the love of His Son, Jesus Christ. Who me? Yes, you. Most times He communicates a little bit of His plan at a time by laying a dream on our hearts. Something that burns inside us, something that we lose sometimes or forget. But a desire that comes back again and again. So many people live their lives but forget to live God’s dream in their hearts. And one reason for that is that God’s dream can be so big, it can seem so far beyond us, that it’s scary. Let me read to you something that a woman called Marianne Williamson wrote back in 1992. She wrote this: “Our deepest fear is not that we’re inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, or gorgeous, or talented, or fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You’re a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing in writing about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure about you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that’s within us. It’s not just in some of us. It’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Do you find that thought provoking? I certainly do. The notion that we aren’t good enough, the notion that I couldn’t possibly ever live out a dream as big as this. It’s a notion that a lot of us have. I often wonder about Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years, 27 years in jail because of his opposition to apartheid in South Africa. Have you thought about that? 27 years is a very long time. And it must have been the dream in his heart one day to lead his country. One day to see apartheid abolished. And I’m sure, when he was sitting in that prison cell, in fact if you read his book, we discover this. There were times when he felt that he wasn’t adequate. People often ask me, “How do you know that the dream that you have for your life is from God?” Well one sure way to tell is that it’s way beyond anything that you or I could do, it’s so outrageous. That unless God’s in it, we can’t succeed. Now in a sense that’s scary. But when you think about it, that’s also really good. If God’s not in something, frankly I don’t want it to succeed. I don’t want to get two-thirds the way down a path and find that I’m carrying a huge and heavy load and God’s not in this to carry that load with me. This was never God’s plan for my life. So I don’t want to succeed in anything that isn’t God’s plan. All right. But then are you saying that we all have to end up doing high profile things that make us famous? No, I’m not saying that at all. Sometimes beyond a young mother with a young child that has nappy rash, that’s teething, there are dirty nappies all over the lounge room, it’s a mess, you’re tired, the whole breast-feeding thing isn’t working and your dream was always to have a little baby and be a Mum and see this child grow up. God is in that place too. We live in this entertainment world where we have larger than life celebrities and we see people, and even Christians, succeed at their dreams. And we look at them and think , “Ah, I could never do that. God’s not in my world the way that God’s in that person’s world.” That is such wrong thinking. Look at who Jesus hung out with when He walked on this earth. Who did Jesus hang out with? Jesus hung out with prostitutes, He hung out with lepers, He hung out with tax collectors, He touched lepers. Yet all the people, the society said, “These are flotsam and jetsam. These are nobodies.” They’re the ones that Jesus spent His time with. Not the famous people. The little people. Paul writes this to the church in Ephesus. He says: God is able to do immeasurably more than all that we can ask for or even imagine according to His power that’s at work in us. (Ephesians 3:20) Do you have a dream that seems so far beyond anything that you can do? You can imagine the dream. You can picture it. You can see it. But there’s just no way that you can get there. Let’s have a look at that little verse again. God is able to do immeasurably more than all that we can ask for or imagine. So let’s take your dream for a minute and say, “That’s ...
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    10 m
  • Thriving in the Promise // Living Your Dreams, Part 8

    Thriving in the Promise // Living Your Dreams, Part 8
    Sep 24 2025
    Each one of us has some big dream for our lives – woven into our DNA by God. But how do we know if we’re actually living the dream? I mean, how do we know when we’ve arrived? How are you doing? Great to be with you again today. This week and last week we’re talking about living out the big dream that we have for our lives. I have one and you have one, even if it’s hidden down deep inside somewhere, maybe long forgotten. And if that dream is a part of God’s plan for your life, (all dreams aren’t of course), then somehow, somewhere it’s going to fit into God’s bigger plan touching the people in this world with His love. It may not be immediately obvious. Often He only shows us one piece at a time, but eventually, as we find ourselves living out our dream for our lives, whatever that is, it’s going to involve just that, touching other people with God’s love. But how do we know when we’ve arrived? I mean, how do we know when we’ve actually started living that dream? It’s a good question. Over these last couple of weeks we’ve been having a bit of a look at a book called, "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson and David Kopp. It’s a book that I would really encourage you to buy. If you go to our website, and we’ll give you that address at the end of this program, you can go to a link where you can buy that book. It’s a book about a man called Ordinary. He’s a nobody from the land of Familiar. And this book traces his journey where he embraces his big dream, where he leaves his comfort zone, where he deals with the bullies along the way and ends up in a wasteland and spends time with God in a sanctuary and travels through the Valley of Giants and finally he arrives in the land of promise, the land where he believes his dream lies. But it kind of doesn’t look very much like his dream. So what does it look like? How do we know when we’ve actually started to live our dream? How do we know when it’s gone from being a dream to being an actuality? It wasn’t what Ordinary expected and sometimes, when we get to a point where we’re living our dream, it doesn’t look like what we expected. Let’s have a listen to this little excerpt from the book: In the days that followed Ordinary walked through every street and every lane and every path of this dismal city of Anybody’s. He talked to young anybodies and old anybodies. And what he saw and heard filled him with sadness. The needs of the anybodies were great and their hopes were few. Ordinary’s heart began to ache in a way it never ached before. One day Ordinary took a stroll near the city gates. As he walked he talked with the friendly anybody children who followed him. And then he heard the Dreamgiver say, ‘What do you see?’ Ordinary stopped. He looked down into the children’s faces. ‘I see beautiful anybodies in great need,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ the Dreamgiver said. ‘What else to you see?’ Ordinary looked up. He could hardly believe his eyes. Carved on the inside of the gate was the name of his dream. ‘Your big dream lies here,’ said the Dreamgiver. Could it be true? Instantly he knew it was true. He’d arrived. Then Ordinary understood why he hadn’t recognized his big dream when it was right in front of him. The lovely city he’d imagined all along wasn’t his dream but a picture of what his dream would accomplish. The big needs of these anybodies matched perfectly to the big dream in his heart and it was time to do his dream. Ordinary was so excited that he let out a whoop of joy much to the delight of the anybody children. Isn’t that the way? We say to God, “I’ve got a dream. I want to be a nurse or I want to be a teacher or I want to be a preacher or I want to be a Mom or I want to be a husband. I have this dream to help other people. God use me to help other people. Use me Lord.” But somehow we imagine that God will take us to a beautiful place full of nice, well-adjusted, wonderful, lovely people. And we imagine that when we get there, those that will work with us on our dream, will share every aspect of our dream. They’ll see the world completely our way. Come on, we know life’s not like that. But we have these idealized, unrealistic pictures in our heads of what the land of our dreams will look like. Listen, if we have a God-shaped dream in our hearts, then that God-shaped dream is going to match a God-shaped need out there somewhere. And people who are in need generally aren’t beautiful people by the world’s standards. People in need are hurting. And hurting people often hurt others. When God called Moses out of the desert to go and lead Israel out of Egypt where they were in slavery into the Promised Land, what he found was several hundred thousand grumbling Israelites that he spent forty years with in the desert. When God called the apostle Paul to go and minister to churches in Corinth and in Ephesus and a lot of the books of the New Testament are letters from ...
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    10 m
  • The Valley of the Giants // Living Your Dreams, Part 7

    The Valley of the Giants // Living Your Dreams, Part 7
    Sep 23 2025
    Each one of us has some dream for our lives. Maybe you’ve stepped out to follow that dream – but then all these obstacles come out of nowhere. C'mon God, what are you up to? Glad to be with you again today. Everyone who’s ever lived out a big dream for their lives has met at least one giant. In fact most dreamers meet several along their road. With an elite athlete well it might be an injury that sidelines them for several months. They think How can I ever come back from that? With someone who decides to go and work with the poor it might be a lack of funds and they think How can I ever do what God’s called me to do without the money? I was talking with a really successful businessman the other day and he was telling me how his warehouse burned down just a couple of years into his big dream. Here’s a question: If you and I have a dream for our lives, and if we believe that God is in the dream, why does He allow those big giants to get in our road? That’s a good question. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at this whole subject of living out the dreams that we have for our lives. There’s a great book which I’ve referred to a couple of times called, "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson & David Kopp. I’d really encourage you to get a copy of that book. It’s a parable about a nobody from the land of Familiar. His name is Ordinary and he leaves his comfort zone to pursue his big dream. One day he finds himself in the Valley of the Giants. Have a listen: Ordinary hadn’t gone far up the Valley when he met his first giant. It was enormous all right and it completely blocked the path to his dream. When it noticed Ordinary, the giant yawned in his direction. ‘Where do you think you’re going, little nobody?’ Ordinary recognized the giant towering over him. It was Moneyless. ‘I need to get past,' said Ordinary. ‘Sure you do. Everybody does,’ said the giant. Ordinary tried to think of a plan but none came to mind. ‘So I need you to get out of my way,’ he said. ‘I’m not moving,’ said the giant. ‘I guess you’ll have to move me yourself.’ For a moment Ordinary hesitated. Then he cried out, ‘Dreamgiver, help me. Please give me the power to move the giant.’ And the Dreamgiver did. Then He told Ordinary what to do and what to say. Ordinary looked up at this big giant called Moneyless and shouted, ‘I challenge you in the name of the Dreamgiver.’ Then he attacked the giant with all his weapons and armor. At first the giant didn’t move. But Ordinary kept reaching for the truths that he’d learned. He took courage, he believed what the Dreamgiver would provide. He relied on wisdom. He fought on, he endured. And with every advance he felt the Dreamgiver’s pleasure. Finally the day came when Moneyless did retreat. Ordinary’s cry of victory rang out through the Valley. ‘Great and good is the Dreamgiver,’ he cried. After that victory Ordinary was never in doubt again. He was a warrior. How many of us would like to see God do an amazing miracle in our lives. We all would, wouldn’t we? I mean we’d love to see God do a miracle that we can look back on and say, “Look at what God did there.” Well every giant, every massive problem that gets in our road, that sits on the road between us and our dream is an opportunity for an amazing miracle from God. When we see one of these giants, the first thing we feel is fear. We look at this great big giant, in this case it was Moneyless, in this case it was a person who had a dream that needed some money but he didn’t have the money. Well, it’s easy to sit down in the road and say, “Well, I’m out of money. I can’t go any further.” We look at those giants and we see an opportunity for God to do a miracle. Our dreams always start off really exciting and then we walk along and we say, “Yes, I believe that God is my Dreamer. I’ve prayed about it and God is here.” And we walk along and we go, “I think God is here.” And then we walk along a little bit further and we see a big giant in our road and we think God can’t possibly be here. I mean if God was in this dream, that giant wouldn’t be in my road. If God was in this dream, I’d have enough money to get along to my dream. And a lot of people give up. They look at the giant and they say, “I can’t go on. I’m going to give up.” Let’s just follow the logic for a minute. You have a dream for your life. It burns in your heart. It something, no matter what you do, it won’t go away. I was talking to a woman recently and her dream was to be a nurse. She dreamed and she wanted to be a nurse all her life. It seemed impossible and it was something that just wouldn’t go away for her. A dream that’s from God is like that. It just keeps coming back. We misplace it sometimes. We forget it sometimes. But it just burns in us. So we had this dream. But then we go to God and we pray it through and we spend time listening to God ...
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    10 m
  • Time in the Sanctuary // Living Your Dreams, Part 6

    Time in the Sanctuary // Living Your Dreams, Part 6
    Sep 22 2025
    Each of us has some big dream for our lives. The thing that we really want to do or to be. Some sense of destiny. But how do we know whether God is in that dream? Good Question. Just great to be with you again on a Monday. Last week we talked about the dreams that we have for our lives. We all have them. Hopes for the future, something that burns in our hearts, something I want to be or I want to do. So few people ever seem to live out their dreams, to embrace them, to leave their comfort zone, to travel down that hard road to live that dream out. Over the weekend someone asked me, "What do you mean about all this dreaming stuff? Is it some kind of self-help program, is it being an achiever, thinking positive, achieving success"? "No," I said, "that's not what I mean." "Then what do you mean"? How does God fit into the picture? Now that's a good question. That's a very good question. Almost every morning I get up quite early between 4:30 and 5:00 o'clock. Apparently, I have been like that since I was a little kid. My mother tells me that from the first time I could climb out of my cot, I was up at 4:00 to 4:30 out raiding the cookie jar. So it's been a lifelong thing for me; I'm just one of those morning people. As I grew up and became an adult, before I became a Christian, I started getting up early again, and the whole day would begin with work. It would be work from beginning to end. Work! Work! Work! Work! Work! These days I've changed my approach. I still get up really early, but I spend the first hour or so with God. I pray, I read the Bible, and when I do that I hear God speak. I sit and wait on Him. You may think I'm crazy. Come on, Berni, read the Bible, give me a break. But that's what I do. And as I sit and wait on Him, I hear Him speak to me, not in an audible voice. But I get a sense when I read the Bible, I'm reading His Word, and I wait on Him of what God's plans are, not just for that day, but also for my life. It's an awesome time, that time of waiting. It's when I do a lot of my dreaming and planning. Now dreaming and planning are two separate things. Dreaming is a higher order of function. Dreaming is about saying, "Where is life going? Where's the ministry going? Where's my marriage going? What are my plans and hopes and dreams for the future"? Planning for me is something much more nitty gritty and detail. It's a lower order of function. It's about saying, "How am I going to run my day today? How am I going to fit everything in? What's the priority for today"? And it's a habit that I've come into early in the morning when everyone else is asleep, and when all we hear outside through the window is the old bird waking up. Something I do with God. Now I have lots of ideas and plans and hopes and dreams. Lots of them! Not all of them fit with God. In fact, I would say, on average, somewhere between half and a third, in my view, end up being in God's will. The rest were just good ideas that Berni dreamed up sometime because we're creative people. We all are. You are. I am. We dream. We think. We create. And then we go and act on those things. The question is: "When we dream a dream, when we hope a hope, when we look forward into the future, and we visualise what that future should look like for us, is God involved in that process or do we do it on our own? In those quiet hours of the morning, I share my hope and my dreams with my God. And the thing that I love to do is to lay them down at His feet. And say, "Lord, I don't want to live a dream, I don't want to live a hope, I don't want to live a plan that isn't your dream, that isn't your hope, that isn't your plan. I want your guidance. Here is my dream. What do you think of it? And in that quiet time in that sanctuary with Him, a still small voice speaks. During the day I have ideas too, and some build into dreams. But during the day I'm on the phone, I'm in the studio, there's emails, there's people, there's noise, I spend time with my family. It's not always possible to hear God's still small voice. Do I receive guidance during the day? Is that God's plan? Yes, I believe we do. If we're walking closely with Jesus, if we're living our lives for Him that in the middle of the day, in the middle of a stressful situation, we can quickly turn to Him, and He'll give us guidance. But when it comes to the big things, the big dreams, the things that you want to do with your life, do you want God involved? I know I do, but do you? And do you want God involved so much that if the dream isn't part of His plan, you'll lay it down. You say, "Lord, I actually don't want any part of this dream. I don't want to live this dream, because it's not one that's come from you." In one of the Psalms, it says even though the mountains are falling into the sea and the nations are raging around you, be still and know that I am God. The mistake that I've made in the past, I think the mistake that is common to all of us is - sometime we think, "Wow, this is ...
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  • But is it God's Dream // Living Your Dreams, Part 5

    But is it God's Dream // Living Your Dreams, Part 5
    Sep 19 2025
    I was asked recently by a woman – if I have a big dream for my life, how do I know it’s from God? How do I know if it’s real? Isn’t this whole living your dream thing just a bit dangerous? Now – she asks some very, very good questions. It’s just great to be with you again on another Friday heading to another weekend. This week we’ve been looking at the subject of living out the dreams that God puts in our hearts. It’s an exciting time because I believe that God puts a dream in everybody’s heart. God gifts us and creates us and makes us for a certain thing in life. And that dream often burns so deeply in our hearts. What I think is really sad is when people get to the end of their lives and they look back on their lives and they realise that they missed the one opportunity that they had to live the dream that God has given them. I was lecturing about this at a Bible college recently. A woman came up to me afterwards and she asked a question. It went something like this, “What is a dream? I mean, how do you know that it’s real? What if it’s just something that I dreamed up and it’s not God’s dream for me? Isn’t that dangerous?” Now, I think that’s an excellent bunch of questions. I heard someone say recently that God is a bit like your American Express card. You should never leave home without Him. I like that. You know, it’s interesting, all sorts of people dream dreams and some of them achieve greatness without ever once believing in Jesus Christ. I believe that’s because we’re all made in God’s image. We are made to be creative. We are made to dream. We are made as ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Is it possible to achieve a dream without believing in Jesus? Absolutely. You just look at some of the great artists and some of the great adventurers and some of the great business leaders down through history and even today. Many of them don’t believe in Jesus. But, if we want a dream that satisfies us, I mean really deeply satisfies us, if we want to be God’s man or woman in the place where He’s called us doing the things that He’s gifted us to do, then the questions that woman asked me about dreaming are very, very good questions. The world is full of successful people who are unsatisfied by what they do. They get to success, whatever success is, and they discover that it’s empty. They discover that when they buy into sweet success, it tastes bitter and sour The only way that we can find fulfilment is in the Person of Jesus Christ. God gifts us, God creates us, God calls us to be ordinary people who do extraordinary things. The questions that woman asked me are these - “What is a dream? I mean, how do I know if it’s real and what if it’s just something that I dreamed up and it’s not God’s dream at all? That’s dangerous,” she said. I think she’s right. So there are four markers that, for me, point to whether a dream is from God or whether it’s something that we dreamed up. I mean, for fifteen or sixteen years of my life I lived my own dream. I was very successful at my dream. It’s just that it never satisfied me. The first marker is this: I believe the Bible teaches us that it is normal for us to dream God’s dreams. In Acts, chapter 2, we read about Pentecost. Pentecost was an amazing time because just as God had promised way back in the Old Testament, that was the day that He poured His Holy Spirit out on all believers. In the past the only people who had the Holy Spirit were certain prophets and certain leaders. And then Jesus came and those who were close to Jesus had a close relationship with God. But this day, after Jesus had risen from the dead and after He’d ascended into heaven, this day of Pentecost is when Jesus poured His Holy Spirit out on all the believers. The people watching saw the believers speak in other tongues, they heard the believers talking in all different languages, they could hear the gospel, the good news, in their own language and they thought the believers were drunk. But Peter the apostle, the one who had stood against Jesus and said, “Lord, You can’t possibly go to the cross.” Jesus had also filled Peter with the Holy Spirit on that day. And the very first sermon that was preached on Pentecost went like this, it was from Peter. And remember Peter is preaching to the Jews in Jerusalem. These are the same people who lynched Jesus, who caused Jesus to be crucified. So this is a gutsy sermon to preach a few weeks after Jesus was crucified. This is how the sermon went - “But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem. ‘Let this me known to you and listen to what I say. Indeed these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only 9 o’clock in the morning. “No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel. In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour My Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and ...
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  • Walking in the Wasteland // Living Your Dreams, Part 4

    Walking in the Wasteland // Living Your Dreams, Part 4
    Sep 18 2025
    Each one of us has some big dream for our lives – woven into our DNA by God. Some of us actually step out of our comfort zones to live the dream. But inevitably when we do, the hard times come. We find ourselves in a wasteland. I’m so excited to be with you again today because this week and next week we’re talking about the subject of dreaming dreams and living out the big dreams that God has put in our heart for our lives. Maybe your dream is to be a nurse or a teacher or wife or a mother or a scientist or a physicist. Whatever that dream is, it tends to revolve around the things that we just love to do. It burns inside us like a fire that we can’t quench. Sometimes people take a risk and step out but they find themselves in a wasteland, in a desert, where it looks as though the dream has evaporated. Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the USA. He was a progressive reformer and the son of a Presbyterian minister. He said this, “We grow by dreams. All big men and women are dreamers. Some of us let the dream die but others nourish them through the bad days ‘til the sunshine and the light which always come.” During the week I’ve mentioned a couple of times the book called The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson and David Kopp it is just an outstanding book. I would encourage you to think about buying it. It’s only $14 or $15 but an outstanding book. The first half of the book is a parable about a man called, “Ordinary” and it’s the story of when Ordinary left the land of Familiar to follow his big dream. He walked through that invisible wall of fear and where he expected to find himself in the middle of his dream, in the middle of the place where he would be satisfied, he found himself in the inevitable wasteland. I’d just like to read to you a short part of that parable from Bruce Wilkinson’s book. Again and again Ordinary lost his way. Again and again he cried out for the Dream Giver to show him the way, but no answer came. Why had he ever trusted the Dream Giver to guide him in the first place? The day came when Ordinary finally gave up. He sat on his suitcase and refused to move until the Dream Giver showed up with a plan. But the Dream Giver didn’t show up that day or the next day. Ordinary had never felt so lost and alone before. He became angry. He got angrier and angrier and then a hard, hot wind began to blow. The wind blew all day and all the next and sand blew into Ordinary’s eyes. It blew into his teeth and ears. When the wind finally stopped, Ordinary stood to his feet but as far as he could see there was only sand. The path to his dream had disappeared completely. Obviously his entire trip through the wasteland had been a waste. Hot tears coursed down his dirty cheeks. ‘You’re not a Dream Giver,’ he shouted. ‘You’re a Dream Taker. I trusted you, you promised to be with me and help me and you didn’t.’ “Then Ordinary stumbled in despair across the sandy waste, dragging his empty suitcase behind him. His dream was dead and now he wanted to die too. Weak, under a scraggly tree, he lay down in it’s scraggly patch of shade and closed his eyes. That night he slept the sleep of a dreamless dreamer. The next morning Ordinary heard something. Startled he peered up to see a shimmering somebody sitting in the branches of the tree. ‘Who are you?’ he asked as she climbed down to the ground. ‘My name is Faith’ she said. ‘The Dream Giver sent me to help you.’ ‘But it’s too late,’ cried Ordinary. ‘My dream is dead. When I needed the Dream Giver most, he was nowhere in sight.’ ‘What do you need that you haven’t received?’ asked Faith. ‘Well if it weren’t for those few springs of water I found,’ answered Ordinary, ‘I’d be dead of thirst by now.’ ‘Yes, and...’ she asked. ‘And if it weren’t for the fruit I found, I’d be a walking skeleton. Wait! I am a walking skeleton. I could die of starvation any minute.’ “‘Oh, my,’ Faith murmured. This parable is closely linked to the story of Israel. Israel was oppressed in Egypt. They were slaves. Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of them. And God sent Moses, through a series of ten amazing miracles, to convince Pharaoh to set Israel free. “Let My people go” was the cry. Eventually, after the last devastating miracle, where each of the firstborn children of the Egyptians, right across the country, died under God’s hand. Pharaoh changed his mind and let them go. But no sooner had Israel left Egypt than he sent his army after them to destroy them because he was so angry. God protected Israel. God put a pillar of His presence between Egypt’s army and His fleeing Israelites. And then God parted the Red Sea and Moses led the people through the Red Sea on the other side. And as the Egyptian army followed them, God let the Sea fall back into place and they were all drowned. But no more than a few days had gone by. Remember Israel has seen miracle ...
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  • Encountering Bullies // Living Your Dreams, Part 3

    Encountering Bullies // Living Your Dreams, Part 3
    Sep 17 2025
    Each one of us has some big dream for our lives – woven into our DNA by God. But sometimes, when we expect those closest to us to be excited and supportive, they’re anything but! Why is that? It's great to be with you again today. You know, this week and next week we are doing something that's really exciting. I'm excited by the teaching that we are having on the program over these next two weeks. We are looking at the dreams in our lives. What's the dream that God has planted in your life? Are you living that dream or is it, maybe, a lost and forgotten dream? Or is it maybe a dream your heart burns after but, somehow, you are stuck in a rut-you are stuck in a comfort zone. Sometimes, we have a dream; we step out of our comfort zone through an invisible wall of fear (that often accompanies our dream) and on the other side, in that zone between our comfort zone and our dream, in that border land, we can find bullies, people who don't want us to live out God's big dream for our lives. Bruce Wilkinson in his book, The Dream Giver, calls them border bullies. I wonder who are the border bullies in your life? Jesus knew what dream God had put in his heart; He knew that He was on this earth to love people, to show people what God is like through His words and through His actions. But Jesus also knew that He was put on this earth to die on a cross to pay for our sins. He was telling His disciples about that second part one day. You can read about it in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 16. It goes like this: Jesus began to show His disciples that He would have to go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day rise again. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Him saying, "Lord, God forbid that this should happen to You." Isn't that interesting? Jesus, the Son of God has a dream that God has put in His heart. For as long as Jesus can remember, He has been the Son of God. And for as long as Jesus can remember, Jesus the boy, Jesus the teenager, Jesus the young man, for as long as He can remember, He knew that He would have to go to the cross to die a grizzly and ugly death to pay for my sins and for your sins. Now, we have the benefit of looking back on 2,000 years of history and looking back and saying, "I understand why Jesus had to go and do that; I understand that my sins are forgiven because Jesus paid the price for me on the cross." Peter, on the other hand, Peter did not have that benefit. Peter was living a life where he was following Jesus around in ministry. And he saw Jesus Christ do some amazing things. He saw Him bring people back to life. He saw Him heal lepers. He saw Him heal blind people. He saw Jesus rebuke the religious establishment for their hypocrisy. He saw Jesus teach people with the amazing power of God's Word. So, why does Peter take Jesus aside and say, "Lord, I'm going to rebuke You; You can't be talking like this, this is not positive words coming out of Your mouth. This is not the way I expected it?" Why does Peter take Jesus aside and rebuke His Lord? Is it that Peter doesn't want Jesus to do God's will? I don't think that's what motivates Peter's here. The thing that motivates Peter is that Jesus' dream of going to a cross is a radical one. And you know something? It's threatens Peter's own comfort zone. All of Peter's hopes and dreams for the future are wrapped up is this Jesus. Peter's like us. We never want to take a step backwards to go three steps forward. We never want to suffer pain. We never want to struggle. And so when Jesus is talking about suffering and dying and rising again on the third day, Peter is thinking, Well, if that happens to Jesus, what is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to my comfort zone? I have all these plans. I have plans to be with Jesus all the time. If one of these things happens, what is going to happen to me? Isn’t that often the way with those who are closest to us? We have a dream; we have a dream to do something that's radical, that's different, that doesn't fit with other people's concept of who we are or what their relationship is with us. And we talk about our dream. We talk about the dream to become a teacher. We talk about the dream to become a nurse. When I was a little kid, I talked to my mother about the dream that I had to become a minister. I didn't quite know what a minister was, but I had that dream. And she said to me, "Ah, Berni, you won't become a minister. You wouldn't be able to get married" because I grew up in a Catholic household. Now, it wasn't that she wanted to push me down; it wasn't that she wanted to pour cold water on me. But it didn't fit with her concept of what her son would grow up to be. So, when we share our dreams and our hopes for the future with those we love, and when those we love don't exactly jump up in support; but, on the other hand, they point out the risks and they stand and they try and...
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