When Your Dreams Feel Hopeless

May 19, 2014 by Mary

When your dreams feel hopeless.

There is hope in the darkness.

Zephaniah 3:17

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.

Envisioning Your Dream

Plant a Seed

See it happening.

Lay out plans as you see your dream. Write them down. Journal about them.

Be specific.

Dreams cannot come to fruition if we are indecisive. We must be intentional.

Put plans in place.

What steps need to be completed to accomplish this dream? List the steps in order of priority.

Work on your steps.

Set a timeframe.

Create a vision board or begin a new journal or a three ring binder with ideas and goals that pertain specifically to your vision/dream.

See everything as part of the creative process of discovery and refining. We are refined by fire—meaning difficulties and setbacks.

Do what you can with what you have and pray. Ask God to complete His will in you and to help your dream happen.

Sometimes we focus so much on a singular way of doing things that we overlook the many other avenues of achieving the same thing!

Persevere.

Do not be a victim of limited thinking.

· The plans that God has for us are much greater than those we have or can envision for ourselves. Be open to new ideas and a new way of accomplishing your goals.

· Dedicate your desires to God and ask him to use you in this capacity.

· When your world seems dark and you feel weary, look for hope in the darkness….be it a small glimmer of light, ignited by the words of others, a bible passage, or the beauty of a sunset. God is in it and He will see you through.

· Everything you have been through in your lifetime will finally make sense the moment you realize that you are in the center of God’s will for your life. He has created you for a purpose and allowed circumstances in your life to perfect you for the task—the plans that He has for you. No experience is ever wasted…our experiences shape us.

Renew Your Strength.

May 16, 2014 by Mary

Renew Your Strength Daily, With God’s Help.

Sometimes we fall on rocky places. Sometimes the pressures in life are just too great and we feel like we can no longer bear them. It’s more comforting to stay in bed and pull the covers up over our heads. Somewhere, someone is losing hope. Life is hard…we get bumped and bruised. It rarely ever turns out the way we had planned. The loss of a loved one, the loss of financial security, the loss of life as you knew it, the loss of your health, death, betrayal, and isolation. These things can wash over us like tidal waves, sometimes one upon another until we feel crushed by the weight of them.

When life is full of difficult experiences, we begin to think that things will never change. We travel down this dusty road, letting our dreams roll away. We cannot picture what tomorrow will look like or imagine for ourselves a bright future because we have experienced too many losses to ever see things the same. Life changes us.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40: 28-31

If you are struggling today and need someone to help you get back up, here are some things you can do (I know, because I often need help getting back up):

Accept the problem for what it is. Don’t make more of it. It is what it is.
If you can do something to change it, get busy. Don’t procrastinate.
If it is a situation you cannot change and it continues to make you feel anxious, like everything in your life…give it to God.
Give it to God anyway.
Get your sustenance from a moment-by-moment dependence on God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow weary.

Get a pack of index cards. Write down your prayers throughout the day. Write down the things for which you are grateful. As you write, lay your burdens at the foot of the cross.
Ask God to carry you.

Moment by moment, He will renew your strength. Think on good things. Confess that His peace is washing over you.As you embark on the journey back to your true self, the self that is immeasurably loved by God, the self that BELIEVES…do something…one foot in front of the other…that you didn’t think you could. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

In all things…give praise.

Praise your way through your difficulties.