“When did you stop reaching for things that are out of reach?” That’s exactly what I heard the spirit of the Lord ask me one afternoon as I was watching my child.
She was always up on her tip toes, always walking around with her arms outstretched. Always reaching for things that were slightly out of reach. Children are like that-always looking up; always climbing up. They are always asking to be picked up, to stay up, and they just can’t wait to grow up. Everything for a child is up.
However as we mature, we quickly come down to reality, don’t we? We come to realize that some things will always be out of reach- that job promotion or business venture; our health or healing; the salvation of friends and loved ones. At some point we start giving up and accept the status quo.
When you were young you had dreams and felt that the sky was the limit. Then came the obstacles, opposition and even individuals who sought to destroy those dreams. The disappointment and offense of unfulfilled dreams is crippling. It kills faith and causes us to stop reaching.
Let me encourage you. If God spoke that dream to you, He will fulfill it. Don’t stop reaching! Don’t stop believing!
Consider Joseph the dreamer from Gen 37. He had a big God-given dream. When he shared that dream with his family, they didn’t celebrate it, they despised it. They sought to destroy his dreams. His brothers even considered murdering him. In the end they chose to bring the dreamer down. They threw him down into a cistern and then sold him to slave traders going down to Egypt. There he was thrown down into prison.
Any of these things would have been enough for most to give up on their dreams and accept the reality of their current situation. However for Joseph what appeared to be the death of the dream was actually the catalyst that would fulfill the dream.
Later when Joseph had been raised up to the second highest position in Egypt he was able to say to his brothers, “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”
That reminds me of something Paul wrote, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).
There is a God-breathed dream within you. Don’t let the past disappointments or even the current obstacles destroy that dream. Who knows those very things could be the catalyst that will fulfill the dream.
If God spoke it, it will come to pass. Keep pressing on. Forget those things that are behind you and reach forward to take hold of those things that are ahead. Learn from a child. Don’t stop reaching!
