Dreaming

It is my goal to blog more often. It seems that the best way i process information and what is happening in my life is to talk it through. Tonight i am listening to sigur ros and writing because i find the music very inspiring and it motivates me to reflect. I thought i would blog some of my reflections with my friends because i believe sharing it with you is in a way inviting you into my walk.

This year has been challenging for me and one area in which i know that God has been working has been in my ability to follow through with what i have started. In many ways i have fallen on my face in this area, and in other ways i have been very successful. It has been a blessing to me that God has given me a great ability to dream big and hang out with friends who are like. While this whole concept of dreaming is familiar to me (since i live here quite often in my mind) it is not to many who surround me such as my students who cant seem to recognize the forest through the trees, or for some of my teacher friends whom i love but have lost the passion to be creative. What is interesting to see is how we each play our role and temper each other. My feet are learning to touch the ground. By that i mean that i am learning to follow through on some of my dreams and make them a reality. Other dreams have yet to come to fruition but the singular fact that some of them are being realized gives me hope that God is working through me and the desires he has given me. And while i continue to dream and desire, even in my failure, when things dont come to fruition, God is still using me in my weakness to encourage others to take risks and dream.

One of the Dreams that i have had which is being birthed in me is to be a great father and husband. I have even taken some drastic measures which may be misunderstood to some to make that dream a reality. I believe God is changing things in me to make this happen. I never would have guessed that by opening this door to change that it would be so difficult or challenging. Almost immediately after taking this first step i have been challenged and am now in the process of facing one of the barriers that must be overcome in order to move forward. How amazing that in my frustration and depression I also have great joy because i know that in this challenge God is working in me and shaping me to look the way he desires me to look. It is different for each of us the way God moves and desires us individually to look while at the same time it is very similar. God desires this specific change in me to nudge me gently closer to his image and in doing so is granting me the desire of my heart. What it took was for me to initially began to recognize what i needed to lay down that i thought i needed to control or be a part of to allow him to move. He desires this in each of use...how amazing that God knows each of us so intimately that he knows just what chord to strike to nudge us in his direction in his perfect patience and timing. I am truly blessed.

David is perhaps my favorite person in the Bible because i like the way he interacted with God. David was in no means perfect obviously (hello Bathsheba) but he was called a man after God's own heart. I imagine David as a young man watching his fathers sheep laying on his back at night looking at the stars and wondering what God had for him and this life. Was sheep herding all there was for him? Or was there something more? God in his perfect timing began to speak to David and through David, with his special nudge God began to expose to David the true character within him. A lion, a Bear... moments where David faced a crossroads of decision that birthed in him great terror and total determination to be faithful to his position and job. God was showing David he was a leader. As David grew he continued to look at the stars and wonder. Time passed, as did many events but David still walked with God...Grounded by the many starlight discussions and questions only he and God knew about. He struggled, fought, made mistakes, had anger towards God, he even questioned God and asked him where he was in his time of need, and he continually fell on his face while making mistakes and having great triumphs. I love David because David was a man unafraid to ask questions, to struggle, to make mistakes and dream with God about the possibilities under the stars. I desire that kind of reality, at times i have had it, I want more.