Reach for the Stars! Attain All of Your Dreams!
We hear these types of things, especially at the end of May during graduation ceremonies and other milestone markers in life. As a youth minister, I heard these “motivational” speeches given to students time and time again.
These statements sound good initially, but the more I think about them…
If you reach for the stars and were finally able to catch one… even a tiny one… it would burn your hand clean off!
And some of my dreams have been nightmares. I don’t want some of those dreams becoming reality – certainly not that dream of me sitting in a final exam in just my underwear nor the one where a monster in the woods is hunting me down to gobble me up.
Of course, we use these little clichés to try to motivate us to make a plan and achieve it. But what if it’s the wrong plan? What if I set my ladder of success up, but once I get to the top of the ladder, I find out that I leaned it against the wrong building?
My plan is to have a safe, comfortable life. But is that goal the same dream that God has for planned for me? I’m not sure that a safe, comfortable life is what God has called me to.
Another one of my plans is to have a happy, healthy family and to put them first. But God says He is supposed to be have priority over my family. When I put my family first, I can allow my desire for comfort and safety in my family to keep me from serving God and from doing what I should. When I do that, I am making my family the supreme love of my life. I am worshipping them, looking after them and their welfare first instead of worshipping and putting God first. When I put my family first, I am allowing my family to become my idol.
“Christ calls us to a higher mission than to find comfort and tranquility in this life. Love of family IS a law of God, but even this love can be self-serving and used as an excuse not to serve God or do his work” (Life Application Bible Notes).
As a youth minister, I would tell my students – to follow your school counselor’s plans for your life is wrong; To follow your friends’ plans for your life is wrong; Even to follow your parent’s plans for your life is wrong. (Sorry parents… but it is true.) These different people can definitely share much wisdom with you, but when God is calling us to His plan, we must leave all other plans behind… no matter whose it is. Our school counselor’s plan, our friends’ plan, our parents’ plan, even our own plan for our own life must be abandoned when these plans are not in-line with God’s plan.
God’s plan is that we not waste our lives on a safe, comfortable life of leisure, but rather that we boldly and courageously live for sharing His message with the world – and that will be uncomfortable in many ways and will even be unsafe in certain situations.
What plans do I need to abandon this week and leave behind so I can start following God’s plan?
How about you?