Okay, I wonder if you can open your Bible with me in Proverbs, Chapter 13 and Verse 12. We've been looking at a series on Desires, Dreams and Destiny. We're looking at having direction, having a plan, having some kind of focus for our life, and last week I looked at, and just talking about dream thieves, things which steal your dreams, steal your hopes, steal your aspirations, steal away your life. The last one we looked at - that's the very first one in that part of the series - was the whole area of an undeveloped character. When we fail to grow our character, there's no way we'll ever enter into the dreams God has for us. We looked at the issue of dreams, and talked about two different kinds of dreams. We talked about dreams which were what I'd just call personal dreams, dream of having a cruise, having a new house, shifting out to Havelock, shifting to a house by the beach, having a boat or some kind of thing like that, a new job, making money. You can have all kinds of dreams like that. Most of those dreams are concerned with our personal fulfilment, and they require something of us. They don't just come into being.
Then we looked at God given dreams, and the things about a God given dream, there's several characteristics. One is it's always concerned about the kingdom of God advancing, always concerned with the kingdom of God advancing. It's always concerned with people hearing the gospel and coming to Christ and it always requires God's ability coming into our life to make it come about. Many times in the Bible, God will match up a personal dream with His dream, so they interlock with one another. I'll just give you a couple of examples before I move on, for example Hannah had a desperate passion for a child, yet she was barren. There was a huge delay she experienced, and apparently nothing. In the process of that delay, there came a deep, deep cry, a deep brokenness in her heart, she surrendered her life to the Lord, and God had a need for a prophet in the nation. So her need was for a son, she was being mocked and belittled by the other wife, Elkanah, and continually humiliated because she had no child, she was barren. But God had a need in the nation for a prophet, and so God's need intersected with her need, and she broke through to a place of surrender, and the child that was born to her was surrendered to the Lord. She got a son, God got a prophet, and the nation prospered. That's how God dreams and natural dreams intersect. Think about it.
There's many examples in the Bible - Abraham had a desire for a son. He wanted a son, he wanted an heir, he wanted a legacy. God wanted to raise up a nation of people that would bring forth His son, Jesus Christ and so Abraham went through a long season of delay, and there was a tremendous grief, but then God gave him a promise. In the end God's promise and Abraham's desire linked together. Abraham got the son of promise, and God got a son of promise, a nation through which he would bring His purposes into the earth. You can just go through this many, many different times in the Bible, how a personal dream and God's dream can intersect. So some dreams are just personal, they're just about our being fulfilled, having a nice life, having great experiences, enjoying our life and they're great, they're wonderful. Why not enjoy those things - but there is a higher call. We must live with eternity in mind, so there is a different kind of dream and that always involves God and always involves advancing His kingdom. Where possible our personal dreams should intersect with God's and sometimes He calls us to lay down personal dreams so that we can intersect with His purpose for our life. So that's how these things come together.
Now last week we just saw about dreams, how dreams can actually be lost and stolen. I want to look at two other dream killers today, and just what to do about them. They're very common and so here, we find the first one, I want to look at two dream killers. The first one is delay, and the second one is disappointment. Now notice these are external, but the response we make is internal, and in the end it's not the delay that causes the problem. It's what goes on in us. It's not the disappointment that causes the problem, it's what goes on, and how we process it. So all of us have experienced delays, and all of us have experienced disappointments. It's part of living life. It's what you do with it makes the difference between whether you come into the God given dream or whether you don't.