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DARE TO DREAM AGAIN

By Steve Mukenya

We have dreamt before and God has done great things in our lives. We must dream again. Remember that every dream we have comes with challenges.

Psalm 51:17
This is the attitude of being surrendered. When you are surrendered you do not shift blame.

When you are not dreaming you easily end up in self-pity and blame-shifting. You see other people's mistakes and weaknesses and not your own. Many times we lack vision for our lives and start to doubt our ability. Let us us dream again drawing inspiration from three men in the bible.

1. ABRAHAM ADVENTURE OF FAITH

Genesis 12:2,3

Abraham - then still called Abram - was given a big promise by God.

Genesis 12:10-13
In lying about his wife, Abraham shows a lack of faith that God was watching over him. It is up to each of to believe that God is working in our lives.

We lose our dreams when we look only at the circumstances and not at God and his power, love, purpose, protection and promises.

Genesis 15:5
Even after Abraham's sin and frailty of faith, God still has a dream for him.

Romans 4:18-25
Abraham believed "against all hope."

Q. Do you give up hope and give up your dreams, or do you believe in the impossible?

Abraham did not let the facts steal his faith. In face of the facts, he was rooted in faith. We will never know everything or know exactly what the future holds, but we still can and must have great faith.

Persuaded: God's promise defied logic. His promises often do. If we live by logic we may end up not believing God's promises and thus not dreaming.

2. JACOB'S JOURNEY OF PRAYER

Genesis 32:22-24

Jacob prayed intensely and then reconciled with his brother in chapter 33.

It is important that we be at peace with disciples and other people around us. We must be desperate to be at peace with our spouses and have excellent marriages. You cannot be an excellent disciple when your marriage is not strong, stable and spiritual.

Have a dream for your relationships! Pray about them and work on them.

Q. What do you pray about? Are you praying about the issues that are present and prevalent in your life?

After 14 years of failure, Jacob's relationship with Esau changed, because he dreamt for it and prayed about it.

3. PETER'S PERSEVERANCE AND RESILIENCE

Acts 4:13

You must never feel inferior about being "ordinary." Don't feel like you are less than others who are more educated or qualified than you are and then feel intimidated by them.

Mark 3:13-16, John 1:42
Jesus has a dream and vision for Peter and re-names him accordingly.

Matthew 15:15,16
At this point Peter is being discipled, not re-named or appointed in glory. We all need times where we are trained and corrected.

Matthew 16:15,16
Now, Peter is doing well, answering questions with spiritual insight.

Matthew 16:22,23
Though he was clearly growing, as we have seen, Peter still needed to be discipled when and where his thinking and life were incorrect and improper.
You have to keep going even when you make mistakes. That is resilience. That is what Peter had. That is what we must have if we are to dare to dream again and once more make ourselves available to God to be used by him in a great way.

Back to index of classes from the January 2005 East Africa Leadership Conference