The Valley of the Giants // Living Your Dreams, Part 7

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 ...