As soon has my children were born the hospital staff put an identification band around their angle. That band identifies who that child is and who its mother is. Just in case that band came off they also put a strip of tape down the baby’s back with the same information on it. That tape is very hard to get off – plain water won’t do it.
Despite the sensitivity of a newborn baby’s skin the hospital knows that a rash on the baby’s back is far easier to deal with than the wrong child going to the wrong parents. It would be a disaster if you began raising the wrong child.
The same is true with your dream. Before you undertake a life long pursuit you must know why it is you’re doing what you’re doing. Ask yourself the question, “Where did my dream come from”?
As you identify the dream, you have to be sure that you’re not trying to prove something to someone – trying to prove that you are not who they say you are, or trying to prove something to someone who is in your past and is no longer in your life, those dreams end up becoming a nightmare, like Ishmael.
Abram waited for so long for his dream, so Sarai told him to sleep with her servant who then gave birth to Ishmael – the son who caused so many problems that eventually they had to boot him out of the house – because he was not part of the promise of God and rather than have a dream family, Abram had a nightmare and the only way to get rid of the nightmare was to get rid of that which was not of God.
It is paramount that you know the source of your dream – it has to be from God, anything else will become a nightmare that takes you off course. Many people are pursing a nightmare and they don’t even realise it, their dream was born out of a wrong motive, or a wrong heart or attitude; or it came about to because they were trying to prove something to someone and now they’re pursuing a nightmare that they have portrayed as a dream.
The dream of God is designed to take you where no one as been before and achieve that which has not happened before. God wants to do a new thing in your life and you cannot experience new things if you’re trying to fulfil someone else’s old dream. This week, take a moment to determine, is this dream from God. When you know it is, it will make the hard times a whole lot easier and help you live the best life.