Discovering the Dreams God Has for You

My Catalyst 2008 experience actually began with a Pre-Lab event called “Discover the Dream”, by Dave Ferguson and the team at Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL. Using the real-life story of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, they illustrated a seven step process to discovering the dream God has for us. Read more about that here.

As I look back, this session became the key that unlocked the power of the dream within me. It wasn’t a single event, but began a process that has been reinforced multiple times since that day. The Scriptural roots are in Ephesians 2:10 – God has prepared a specific dream for each of us, and we need to be moving toward it. The questions we need to ask?

• If I could do anything for God, I would…
• What barriers keep me from that dream?
• Is there a certain people, place, or passion God is calling me to?
  
  

Once you begin to answer those questions, you will find that discovering God’s dream begins to change things:

• You, and the questions you ask
• People around you
• The world!
  

I am asking those questions, and I am earnestly seeking God’s dream. What about you?

Discover Your Dream

Fridtjof Nansen was a Norwegian explorer who had personal dreams:

1. To be the first to cross the interior of Greenland, bringing back valuable information for the scientific community


2. To prove the theory of continental ice flow by placing his ship in the ice on the East side of the Arctic and letting it travel over the continent for three years until it was freed on the West side; and in the process reached the North Pole

He achieved both.

He planned to continue on with his dreams of exploration, but with the onset of WW1, funds for exploration were diverted elsewhere. Nansen now found himself in opportunities of global impact that he could have never dreamed possible. God's dream for his life was much bigger than Nansen's dream! As a result of this redirection, he:

• Led the movement that resulted in Norway's independence from Sweden


• Served as Norway's minister to Great Britain


• Led the delegation that orchestrated the relaxation of the Allied naval blockade to save innocent lives during WW1


• Worked to repatriate over 450,000 POWs after the war


• Directed relief for the Russian famine of 1921-22, saving the lives of an estimated 7-22 million people


• Mediated and led the resettlement of 1.75 million people after the end of the Greek/Turkish war


• Helped feed and resettle 50,000 Armenian refugees displaced after the war

Nansen: explorer, scientist, scholar, Christ-follower, humanitarian, politician, Nobel Prize winner.

What dream are you passionately pursuing? Dreams change you, they change others, and they change the world. If you don't have a dream that causes you to be dependent on God...you have not yet rediscovered the dream God has for you!

My friends at Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL helped start my Catalyst experience three weeks ago with the story of Nansen. They outlined 7 steps to Discovering Your Dream. Your dreams start with identifying a "God-sized thing" that is calling you to a bigger vision than you've ever had before.

I have no aspirations of being an Arctic explorer...but I feel a God-sized dream forming in the midst of the future.