Before you write your response, I want you to do something. I want you to go outside. I’m not going to say for how long, because this isn’t something to check-off your list. I want you to go outside and just be for a little while. Be. Listen. Be. For this activity, I don’t want you to be with anyone. Be by yourself for a little while. Really allow yourself to BE with yourself (this may sound odd…but seriously, I want you to do this). And as you sit with yourself, I want you to ask yourself this question: What is my dream? What is that one thing that makes me feel most alive––the most alive that I have ever been?
And I want you to be real honest with yourself. Don’t listen to the voices in your head…don’t listen to the pressure you feel from either yourself, your parents, your friends, or any other source. I want you to listen to your heart. To truly listen to your heart. And then after you have spent time with yourself…I want you to go back inside and write. Write about it. Write about your dreams, your fears. Write about whatever tugs at your heartstrings. Just write.
The above is the blog prompt my Honors Orientation instructor gave us this week. (I know it makes this post really long, but I felt the need to add it.) Quite interesting, don’t you think? Regardless, I did go outside and sat on the 101 steps for about an hour. I was praying for a quiet heart and mind, and was growing slightly anxious because I was not hearing any response from God. I do not want a dream that does not line up with His will, so I asked Him to I wanted Him to tell me what my dream is. And I started to think about how I am always desiring to follow His path and speaking passionately about living for Him alone, but my inner life is so reluctant to do just that. I came to the conclusion that I know and accept the concept of a sold-out life for Christ, but I have yet to learn how to put this into practice. If I spent the rest of my life learning to become more and more set-apart for Him, what would my dream be? The answer is…I don’t know. I am not sure that I have a definite goal-oriented dream for my life right now. And I feel a little pressured by the question above to have that kind of dream. I feel that I am supposed to know what I am going to do with my life.
Then again, the question does not ask what I am going to do with my life after I graduate from college. It asks, “What is my dream? What is that one thing that makes me feel most alive—the most alive that I have ever been?” Near the end of my outdoor time, I felt God tugging my heart toward a life of worship. Whether I am leading in church or dancing/singing/acting in musical theater, I want to always have an attitude of adoration to my King. I am a little frightened that I will not be able to support myself in this, and that I’ll either be forced to take a second job just to pay the bills and buy the groceries or be unable to find such a job. But, the Lord is asking me to trust Him, and how can I say “no” to the One who poured out His blood for me?
I am sensing a tug in another direction as well. Actually, it is the same direction, but I am not entirely sure how to describe it. Here goes…I have a heart for children. Whether I ever marry or not, I want to be a Christ-like shepherd of all the children in my life. I want to guide them in their ever-growing faith; I want to encourage them to take on the totally set-apart life for Christ that I am pursuing. I do not know how this will look. Will I marry and adopt many children in addition to having my own, or will I be like Amy Carmichael—missionary, single woman, and adoptive mother? Who knows where God will lead me? This question both scares me and excites me. I want to follow my Prince wherever He goes and serve Him in everything I do, but I am afraid to lose myself in Him. But, when I do give up my identity for His, can you imagine all that can be accomplished through me by His name? I can’t! And now that I think about it, I think my biggest dream is to do the impossible, the unimaginable, and the incomprehensible—all in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord! Questions:
In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller states in chapter 21 on page 125, "...a story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling the people around us what we think is important." If you are a Christian, think like a Christian when answering this question: Why should we get to decide what is important and what is not? How can we determine what is important/unimportant? Also, in the beginning of chapter 24, Miller discusses how the epic stories contain two elements. First, "the thing a character wants must be very difficult to attain...There needs to be a question as to whether the character will make it, whether he will defeat the enemy or the enemy will defeat him (page 156). Second, "the ambition had to be sacrificial. The protagonist has to be going through pain, risking his very life, for the sake of somebody else" (page 157). I want to know how we move from "practice stories" (see chapters 22-24) to epic stories. Do we need an inciting incident or self-motivation? Or, if the two are combined, what do they look like?
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