The Best Life

Sometimes the thing that God has given you is the very thing that can cause trouble in your life.  But unless you properly discern that the trouble is part of the process to the accomplishment of what God is doing in your life you will never receive all that God has for you, because you’ll always be running from the trouble instead of running through it.

In Genesis we read the story of Joseph. He was a man with a dream from God.  It was a dream that one day he would become the nation’s leader.  But before he had that dream, the only trouble in his life was that his brothers despised him, because his father favoured him.

Then he tells his brothers of the dream he had and they plot to kill him.
But rather than kill him they sell him off.
He’s then wrongly accused of sexual assault and thrown in jail.

And it all started with a dream from God that he was going to be the nation’s ruler and now he’s in jail.  Does it get any worse?

Between the conception of a dream and its birth there will always be a variety of seasons that bring many challenges that must be overcome.

But despite the difficulties and the trouble that he went through Joseph never gave up on the dream.  He discovered that the pursuit of a God-given dream is not an easy one.  Many dreams go unfulfilled because people cannot cope with all that comes with the pursuit of a dream.

And tonight I want to give you three things that you must go through as part of the pursuit of your dream.  No one ever sees the fulfilment of their dream without experiencing these three things.

1. YOU HAVE TO KNOW THE SOURCE OF THE DREAM
Some have inherited dreams from people who want to live out their unfulfilled dreams through you.  And if you are trying to be something that God didn’t create you to be then you will end up resentful and frustrated trying to fulfill something that others have imposed on you.

We hear about it so often with child sporting stars who, despite having some level of success are miserable in a sport to which they have been imprisoned by their parents.

As long as you are trying to live out someone else’s dream you remain a prisoner to the person whose dream it is you’re trying to fulfil.  You might have achieved many things in life, but when that dream finally comes to pass, you will be miserable and resentful and take one loo at it and hate it and suddenly realise that you have waisted a lifetime pursuing something that never belonged to you.

Where did your dream come from?

2. YOU MUST BE PREPARED FOR TROUBLE
As much as we idealise the easy and hold on to a fantastical hope that everything is going to be easy in the pursuit of your dream you will come to know that no one ever achieved greatness because everyone agreed with them.

The first thing that Joseph discovered about his dream was that he was going to have to do this alone.

Between you and your dream there will be controversy and conflict.  Your dream, that very thing God gave you, will get you in trouble, but you have to keep going.

If Joseph had of waited until his family liked the idea of his dream then he would have died empty unfulfilled of his life’s purpose, never had seen the miraculous work of God in his life.

The dream that God gives you is the very thing will bring trouble into your life, but you must remember that, that trouble will also bring you new things that God has for you. That trouble is the sifting of the old and the establishment of the new.

3. YOU MUST BE PREPARED FOR CHANGE
Everything about Joseph’s life changed. Absolutely everything.

Every time anybody starts going to a new level, instead of honouring them and praising God for them, they are shot down. They are ostracised, criticised and ridiculed.  You can’t do anything or say anything without your critics scrutinising every little look, every little murmur.

There is something inside the carnality of humanity that it doesn’t like what it can’t control and that’s just the work of the flesh.  The flesh doesn’t like what it cannot control.  That’s why we have such a problem with violence, sexual immorality, lust and doing what they shouldn’t be doing, because it’s motivated by the flesh and fed by the flesh and the problem is you’re trying to control it by the flesh.  But the flesh cannot control what it doesn’t like.  It has to work the other way around.  It’s the Holy Spirit who must rule and reign over your flesh.

And the problem the dreamer must overcome is the challenge of the flesh not to change, to remain small, maintain the status quo. They’ll love you while they can control you, while you’re still within their reach, while you haven’t broken new ground.  But the moment, you go up a level, the moment you break new ground, the moment you begin to change is the moment they’ll shoot you down.  But you must continue to change.  The pursuit of your dream requires you to change.

In the pursuit of your dream don’t let the very thing God gave you become the same thing that destroys you.

© Mark Sceriha