Grown Up

I'm a grown up! I pay rent, get sleepy at 10 O'Clock, keep up with T.V. shows, get on Facebook way too much, blog and pin things, schedule bills, oil and filter changes and my own dental appointments. I am a grown up because I have had dreams and I have seen them fall apart.

Within the last 9 months I feel like I have lived and survived more life than anyone should have to live through in a normal 9 months. Full-time job, graduating, moving, relationships beginning and ending, crippling fear, counseling and lots of traveling. Yet through it all I have survived. Maybe a little worse for wear but I survived.

Today I was back on my old stomping grounds, JBU Chapel. Phil Visher, the creator of Veggie Tales, spoke and he was great!! He spoke as a man who has lived more life than the average person has lived. He was the CEO of a multimillion dollar business that he had worked towards since he was 14 and he then watched it all begin to crumble right before his eyes. He watched his dream come to life and he then watched them die. It's amazing how God gives us desires, hopes and dreams, to then ask us to lay them back down at his feet. I do believe he gives us dreams and he then asks us to let them go. Challenging what is more important in life, God or our Dreams?

We see this so many times in scripture, he gives someone a dream and then asks them to let it die. Abraham was asked to sacrifice the son he had waited so many years for, Jesus was only our true savior after he was sacrificed, the Shunammite woman who received a son and then held him as he died. But what is so funny to me is in all these stories the dreams come back after they are sacrificed, but they are never the same. They always come back even better than before. That doesn't mean they are better according to the world. But the Holly Spirit dwelling in us, instead of Christ dwelling among us, is a great added bonus. Does that mean I would have rather had the Holy spirit and no Christ? NOT AT ALL! But I am so glad that we had a dream come true and then it was sacrificed for a new dream to come true.

Being a grown up means that you are willing to give up on dreams. When you are young you want to grow up as quick as possible because you think it means all your dreams will come true. But in reality it's just the opposite. You are willing to give up those dreams that you had hand crafted and conceived of from childhood. Those dreams you clung to for dear life, that brought you comfort during hard times and help mold you into the person you are today. Yep! Those dreams, give them up.

Not because they won't come true, or they don't mean anything or you should of never had them, but because you understand that there are greater things than your dreams.

For Christ to die meant eternal life for all of us, and the Holy Spirit to come in his place and guide us. For Phil loosing his business meant that he would be able to reconnect with Christ, and put his pride in place to therefore start other entrepreneurial adventures. For me, loosing the dream of what my life would be like means that another life can be lived.

 "A servant cannot serve two masters. He will hate the first master and love the second, or he will be devoted to the first and despise the second. You cannot serve God and wealth."

This makes so much sense to me now. When you love something and serve it outside of the love of Christ, it becomes so much work! You become so weighted down by it, and you are so angry at God because life is suppose to be easy. But then you realize life is easy when you allow him to be your God and serve him alone. You then despise what you served before knowing that it was never going to have the freedom that comes in Christ.

Live in Christ, and allow your dreams to come through Him.