God doesn’t want us to give up on our dreams and goals in life. As a matter of fact, He needs our dreams to fulfill. He is the one who gives us the dreams so that His purpose can be fulfilled in our lives. It’s our job to pursue those dreams and not give up. There are many reasons why people give up on their dreams but if we can avoid the following three we will be well on our way to seeing our dreams come to pass.
Time
Time is of the essence. There is an appointed time for every dream to be fulfilled. If you understand this you will never let go and give up on your dream. Look at Abraham, God gave him a promise that He would have an heir and that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:2-3). However, it took Abraham twenty-five years before he saw the manifestation of that promise. Why? Because with every promise there is an appointed time.
God could have allowed Sarah to become pregnant anytime after He gave Abraham the promise, (after all He is God) it could have been an instance miracle. So why wasn’t it? Was it that Abraham didn’t believe? No, scripture tells us that Abraham believed and it was accounted to him for righteousness. So why the wait? I believe the wait was for the appointed time. The angel of the Lord told Abraham, “At the appointed time I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son” (Gen. 18:14). God is never too early and He is never too late. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, He hath made ever thing beautiful in His time; also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. We may not know what the appointed time is but we can trust God to bring it to pass at the appointed time.
Not understanding that there is an appointed time can cause you to do things outside of God’s will to accomplish your dream just as Sarah did when she gave Hagar to Abraham. What Sarah didn’t realize was that time was necessary for the physical things to line up with the spiritual. Only God knows how long that process will take but rest assured He never gives up on what He has promised you. If He has given you a dream or vision for your life He will bring it to pass at the appointed time. Ours is to trust Him and walk in obedience to His will.
Environment
How many people give up on their dreams because of an adverse environment? Our environments are not to control us we are to control our environments. I think sometimes we look for things in our environment to determine whether or not our dream will come to pass. Our dreams are not fulfilled by our environments our dreams are fulfilled by the power of God. There is no telling how many dreams have died because of the current economic environment. The enemy uses things in our environments to distract us from pursuing our God given destinies. Take Hagar for example, God had given her a promise that her son Ishmael who become a great nation but when things got rough in her environment she put the promise out of her sight (Gen. 21:15-16). Hagar had allowed her environment to dictate her destiny. She didn’t realize that the God that gave her the promise would be the God that would fulfill it. Even though she couldn’t see beyond what was in front of her God spoke to her and told her to pick up the child and hold him in her hands because even in the desert His promised would come to pass (Gen. 21:18). Remember, your environment doesn’t dictate your destiny.
Resources
Many, many, many, dreams have drowned in the sea of lack. How many times have you said “I would do it but I don’t have the resources.”? Or, “if I had the money I would do this.” The enemy will use money to stop you if you let him. You must know that dreams and visions are not fulfilled by money they are fulfilled by the power of God. Jesus had a vision to feed thousands of hungry people in a desert place where there was no food expect a little boys lunch of five loaves and two fish (John 6:1-14). His disciples look at it as a hopeless situation. “Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto Him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?” (John 6:7-9). The disciples could only see what they didn’t have because that was the only way they could see the need being met, through their natural means. They saw they didn’t have the resources to fill such a large order and that what they did have was not enough. The supernatural wasn’t in their minds. Yet Jesus was there in their midst. If you’re depending on your job or what you can earn to fulfill your dream it may never get done. For one thing God always gives us dreams beyond our natural abilities so that we will rely on Him to accomplish them. Jesus took what was there blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples to give to the multitudes and five thousand people where feed. He didn’t give up on His vision because of the environment or limited resources He knew He wasn’t limited to His environment or what was in it. He had a vision and He had the power to bring it to pass. We have more than what’s in the earthly realm to accomplish our dreams. We have Christ the Son of the Living God who is more than enough.