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Don't Let Your Dream Die

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately. Recently I watched a movie called “Won’t Back Down” it was a really inspirational movie that dealt with having a dream & the many obstacles we encounter along the way. I watched as these 2 ladies tried so hard to achieve the dream they had set out to reach only to have many set backs & what looked like impossible situations that stood between them & their dream. In the beginning they were so excited, enthusiastic & positive but you could watch as the journey got harder & harder how their excitement turned into frustration & sometimes even discouragement. Sounded like a familiar story to me & probably to many of you too that have set out to reach the dream that is living in your heart.
I remember as a kid I would practice in my basement for hours singing & performing, in my mind I was doing in front of thousands & thousands of people because that was my dream & I never thought anything less than that would happen. I remember the very first concert I ever did was in 1995, it was a Christian Rap concert that my friend & I did as an outreach to tell our friends & other teens about Jesus. We were planning on filling this whole building with people. We worked on our songs for months everyday, passed out flyers, hang posters all over the surrounding towns, we thought there would be so many people there you wouldn’t even be able to move! We said to ourselves, “there’s probably going to be over 500 people there that night!” well the big night finally came, we were downstairs getting ready so anxious to go up stairs & see all the people who were going to be there. When we finally went up stairs to our amazement there wasn’t 500 people there. Not over 300 or 100, there were only about 40 people who showed up. We were crushed, we had such high hopes, we had worked so hard only to have a small handful of people show up. I remember the dream in my heart shrank a little that day. Year after year concert after concert many times that same thing happened & over time the dream grew smaller & smaller.
At some point over time after having many disappointments & discouraging things happen in my music & ministry I started to develop this attitude of, well I guess this is as good as it gets, it will always be this way. I had sang in front of small crowds for so long at some point I stopped seeing the dream I once had in my heart of singing to thousands of people & reaching a whole generation for God. That my friend is a dangerous place to be! Never fall into the trap of the “it will always be this way” syndrome, because God has better things in store for you & for your future! 
A few years ago God reminded me of those long hours in my basement of practicing in front of thousands, of how much I believed it would really happen & God said something to me, he said, “Jimmy you stopped dreaming & you settled for where you are, don’t ever settle, start dreaming again.” I had kind of forgotten about it because of all the struggles I had been through, I started only remembering all the bad things that had happened & the disappointments I had went through. Then I started remembering how when I was a teenager about 4 or 5 times preachers called me out of large crowds who didn’t even know me & they would say, “I don’t know who you are but God just showed me a vision of you standing in front of thousands of people reaching the younger generation for Christ, God is gonna do big things with your life!” Somehow life has a way of making us forget those good things & all we start to remember, if we’re not careful, are the things that have pulled us down & hurt us.
I believe we all have a dream that God has put inside of each one of us, but I also believe that we have to fight to keep that dream alive. When you set out on your journey to achieve that dream in your heart, I can pretty much guarantee you it will not be easy, but I can guarantee you that it will be worth it! I want to encourage you today, don’t let your dream die, tell your heart to start believing & dreaming again. Sometimes our vision for the dream dies but I have learned that dreams that come from God never die, only our will to reach them dies, but the dream lives on. So what are you waiting for?

I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately. Recently I watched a movie called “Won’t Back Down” it was a really inspirational movie that dealt with having a dream & the many obstacles we encounter along the way. I watched as these 2 ladies tried so hard to achieve the dream they had set out to reach only to have many set backs & what looked like impossible situations that stood between them & their dream. In the beginning they were so excited, enthusiastic & positive but you could watch as the journey got harder & harder how their excitement turned into frustration & sometimes even discouragement. Sounded like a familiar story to me & probably to many of you too that have set out to reach the dream that is living in your heart.

I remember as a kid I would practice in my basement for hours singing & performing, in my mind I was doing in front of thousands & thousands of people because that was my dream & I never thought anything less than that would happen. I remember the very first concert I ever did was in 1995, it was a Christian Rap concert that my friend & I did as an outreach to tell our friends & other teens about Jesus. We were planning on filling this whole building with people. We worked on our songs for months everyday, passed out flyers, hang posters all over the surrounding towns, we thought there would be so many people there you wouldn’t even be able to move! We said to ourselves, “there’s probably going to be over 500 people there that night!” well the big night finally came, we were downstairs getting ready so anxious to go up stairs & see all the people who were going to be there. When we finally went up stairs to our amazement there wasn’t 500 people there. Not over 300 or 100, there were only about 40 people who showed up. We were crushed, we had such high hopes, we had worked so hard only to have a small handful of people show up. I remember the dream in my heart shrank a little that day. Year after year concert after concert many times that same thing happened & over time the dream grew smaller & smaller.

At some point over time after having many disappointments & discouraging things happen in my music & ministry I started to develop this attitude of, well I guess this is as good as it gets, it will always be this way. I had sang in front of small crowds for so long at some point I stopped seeing the dream I once had in my heart of singing to thousands of people & reaching a whole generation for God. That my friend is a dangerous place to be! Never fall into the trap of the “it will always be this way” syndrome, because God has better things in store for you & for your future! 

A few years ago God reminded me of those long hours in my basement of practicing in front of thousands, of how much I believed it would really happen & God said something to me, he said, “Jimmy you stopped dreaming & you settled for where you are, don’t ever settle, start dreaming again.” I had kind of forgotten about it because of all the struggles I had been through, I started only remembering all the bad things that had happened & the disappointments I had went through. Then I started remembering how when I was a teenager about 4 or 5 times preachers called me out of large crowds who didn’t even know me & they would say, “I don’t know who you are but God just showed me a vision of you standing in front of thousands of people reaching the younger generation for Christ, God is gonna do big things with your life!” Somehow life has a way of making us forget those good things & all we start to remember, if we’re not careful, are the things that have pulled us down & hurt us.

I believe we all have a dream that God has put inside of each one of us, but I also believe that we have to fight to keep that dream alive. When you set out on your journey to achieve that dream in your heart, I can pretty much guarantee you it will not be easy, but I can guarantee you that it will be worth it! I want to encourage you today, don’t let your dream die, tell your heart to start believing & dreaming again. Sometimes our vision for the dream dies but I have learned that dreams that come from God never die, only our will to reach them dies, but the dream lives on. So what are you waiting for?

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