“I will give you a new heart. I will give you new and right desires. I will put a new spirit within you.”—Ezekiel
36:26(LB)
Are you willing to dare to dream? Or is fear of failure or rejection keeping
you shut down and imprisoned. You are an important creation of God, and He
wants you to desire His best. “But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen,
nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has
prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them …” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). You were created for a particular
purpose! Go ahead and dream and ask God
to direct you. Remember, many great
visions start with small dreams.
Michelangelo, the great sculptor, bought a chunk of marble which others
thought was inferior. When asked why, he
replied, “Because there is an angel locked in that marble, and I must set it
free.”
Many of us feel that we have not
“made it” in life, or for that matter, we were not “made” for dreaming
big. I have heard some people say, “I
wish I had a sense of humor. I can not
sing or act.” Some may have had parents
who thought they did not amount to anything.
I can remember thinking that when I went back to school, as an older
adult, that I was not sure if I would be smart enough. Have you ever thought like that? A few of us may have achieved great goals or
made a lot of money, but we still feel insecure inside. Perhaps we have asked ourselves, “Who am I?”
and did not hear a clear answer.
No matter where we are in our
self-evaluation today, we can move on.
We can dare to dream. Dr. T.L. Osborn, once said, “When I think
of any one who is imprisoned by a sense of inferiority because of race, color,
social, academic or economic status, or when I see someone who is lonely,
abused, discouraged or afraid, I know that inside that individual is a super
person whom I must find the way to set free.”
Because Dr. T.L’s messages are so uplifting and positive, they help to
remind me of God’s original idea for
me: to share His life and His abilities with me, to make me happy, healthy,
talented and prosperous. Jesus summed up
the Father’s will for me when He said, “…I
come that you might have life and that more abundantly” (John 10:10).
In Barbra Streisand’s powerful film,
YENTL, an intelligent young woman
grows up under her rabbi father’s religious dominance. As a female, she is forbidden an education,
prohibited from reading rabbinical books, predestined to a lifetime of female
inferiority and servitude. Her hunger
and thirst for knowledge coupled with her determination caused her to break
sacred rules…she dared to read the Talmud.
She went as far as, disguising herself as a male in order to pursue
Talmudic studies as a yeshiva—the sacred domain of male’s only. She is finally alienated from her people and
journeys off into the distance with a boatload of seemingly displaced
nonpersons in search of a land that is free of religious bigotry.
Her sin? She dared to desire and look beyond religious limitations. She dared to dream that God must be as good to women as He is to men. As Yentl struggles with her free spirit and
struggles with religious prejudice, she expresses her desperation in some
awesome songs.
She asks: Where
is it written that I cannot be the person I am meant to be? Describing the narrow views religion has
permitted her to glimpse, she realized that she had only been allowed to see a
piece of sky. Now she had stepped
outside and looked around, having never dreamed the sky was so wide or so
high. Because of her new found
knowledge, Yentl is now born into a new world.
She has a voice now. She
has a choice now.
Some of her additional lines
include: What is wrong with wanting more? Why
settle for just a piece of the sky?
Yentl sings about certain things which once you have, no wind can blow
away, nor tide can turn away, no fire can burn away, nor time can wear
away. She asks the question, why is a bird given wings, if not to
fly? Why have eyes to see and not see?
Or arms to reach, and not reach? Or a
mind unless you are meant to question why?
Or why have thirst if not to drink?
The entire, moving story, dramatizes
the glorious enthusiasm of a person who has at last understood that God gives us the power of positive
desire. When at last you understand
that you are a new creature and that old things have passed away, at last you
can say with Paul, “Those who belong to
Christ have nailed their natural evil desires to his cross and crucified them
there” (Galatians 5:24 LB).
You believe in the new creation—the
new you that He has made you to be. F.F.
Bosworth said, “Always desire what God
desires, and desire it for the same reason He desires it, and then His Holy
Spirit will work with you to achieve what you want.”
Prayer—Father
I thank You for the power of positive desire.
Today, I examine my desires and I ask the Holy Spirit to shine His
illumination upon anything in me that is not from You. Lord, I repent of __________________and I ask
You to forgive me. Help me Father to
desire what You desire for the same reason that You desire it, in Jesus’
Name. Amen.
