“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
One of the dilemmas of my heart in regard to this dreaming dance has been my wondering if God even wants me to “dream big.” Many times, when my dreams seemed impossible, I felt like dreaming big was kind of a selfish and disheartening pursuit. As a little girl, I had tons of dreams, but as I became a grown-up, responsibilities, reality, and practicality seemed to suppress my dreaming heart. I wondered if dreaming was even good for me. But God has shown me that He desires for us to dream with Him because it actually makes our hearts dance, helps us know Him better, and points others to Him. God wants us to allow Him to guide us to the dreams He has for us, which come in all shapes and sizes. Dreaming then becomes a divine pursuit instead of a selfish one.
In this chapter, I want you simply to soak in God’s desires for you in regard to your dreaming journey.
Dreaming Makes Our Hearts Dance
In the fall of 2015, I walked my oldest son, Camp, to his very first football practice. It wasn’t even an official practice, more of a pre-practice to get in shape for the real practices. He was only nine years old. My little man jumped out of bed early with excitement. He was dressed and ready to go way before I was. He had been waiting for his turn to play football—and suddenly it was here. My mama heart saw a little man with big dreams and a big heart, and his joy and excitement reminded me of what God does in us through the dreams of our hearts.
God wants us to know that dreams make our hearts dance. Dreams give us wings. Dreams are boosts of grace, joy, and delight that give our often weary hearts little tastes of heaven.
Dreams push us to God’s heart because they are improbable, seemingly impossible, and sometimes over our heads, and all we can do is hold them up to our Maker. Dreams seem to chase us, then pull us back, then knock us down, and then inspire us. Dreams make our hearts beat a little faster. Dreams make our souls soar a little higher.
My son, in all his joy that morning, reminded me that dreaming is good for our hearts. Even for a busy mama, even for a dancer whose body was feeling too old for professional ballet that morning, and even for a writer who at the time felt her writing dreams were on hold. Dreaming does something in us. Something heavenly. Something divine. I believe God wants us to dream with Him because dreaming makes us giddy, for lack of a better term.
When Mary’s Heart Danced
God’s dream for Mary made her heart dance. In Luke 1, the angel approached Mary and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you” (v. 28). The angel’s words greatly troubled Mary, and she wondered what kind of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus” (vv. 30–31). The angel went into deeper detail about God’s dream for this ordinary gal and ended with this: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (v. 37 ESV). After the shock wore off and Mary received some encouragement from Elizabeth, Mary’s heart began to dance with a new song.
My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm . . . . has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things. (vv. 46–53)
As Mary allowed herself to believe God was serious about this dream for her, her heart exploded in joy and praise to Him. She didn’t know how the dream would work out, she didn’t know for certain it would turn out, and she didn’t have a detailed plan to see the dream through. But God had given her a dream. And it made her heart dance.
Permission to Dream
God desires for us to give ourselves permission to dream because dreaming keeps our hearts dancing. When we dream, we live full of hope, possibilities, and purpose, and living this way has a beautiful effect on our hearts and the hearts of those around us. Many times throughout motherhood I wanted to know whether it was okay for me to keep dreaming. I would have loved for someone to have said, “Yes, keep dreaming” or “No, now’s not the time.” Maybe you’ve felt this way, but I want you to know that God wants us to keep dreaming in every season. He wants us to dream even when the logistics of our dreams don’t seem possible. But in the dreaming, He longs for us to keep Him in the lead.
He also wants us to see a deeper purpose for our dreaming. After all, dreaming is not just about us. Dreaming is a path to getting to know Him and pointing others to Him. Just as the dream God gave Mary was not just for her, although it deeply blessed her, God has dreams for each of us that reach farther than we think. God’s dreams for us are actually pathways to His heart, as well as to others’ hearts. God wants us to allow Him to guide us into the dreams He has for us.
The Emotions That Surface When We Dream
Following, pursuing, and thinking about our dreams can feel heavy because dreams are intensely personal. They hold our innermost desires, our passionate emotions, along with our deepest fears and insecurities. An abundance of emotion is tied to our dreams. And we all have experienced how a dream, big or small, can even break our hearts.
Many times throughout the years, my fragile emotions surfaced and I couldn’t put a name on my dream. I felt restless, hungry for purpose and passion, but at the same time, I was powered by my “mama bear” instincts. I longed to keep life simple so I could focus on raising my sons with my husband. I flitted around different possible ideas in my heart, thinking that when I found the “right” one, the angst would go away and I could get busy living my dream. My ideas ranged from starting a ballet company in Dallas to starting my own leotard line to beginning a cross-training program for dancers to teaching ballet. I had all sorts of ideas and desires, and I was antsy to find my thing. I had fun with these ideas one day and then got mad at them for feeling so impossible and distracting on other days. Deep down I was grieving the loss of the ballet company I had danced with for so long. They were having financial troubles, so I wasn’t getting to dance as much as I was used to. I was trying not to be sad about not dancing, but deep inside, that was my dream. All these other ideas felt like backup dreams. My heart was tender from emotion, raw from disappointment, and a little embarrassed that I felt clueless as to what the answer was. I wondered if it was time to turn off the dreaming switch of my heart because all this dreaming felt too hard on my heart.
One afternoon, the artistic directors from the ballet studio I grew up dancing at swung by my house to borrow something. I worked really hard to put a smile on my face and a bounce in my step, not wanting to hint to them that I felt a little lost. They asked how things were going with the ballet company, and I let them know it was not looking too good. Most dancers would’ve picked up their lives and found another company in a different city to dance for. However, Brian and I did not want to move because our little family felt established in Dallas, so I felt as if dancing professionally was slowly slipping from my life. I tried to hide my emotion and disappointment from them. What I really wanted to do was ask them for wisdom, but I kept my heart tucked away inside.
Not long after their visit, one of them called me, and it turns out she had read me like a book. She saw the hurt, angst, disappointment, and emotion in my eyes that day. She didn’t know all the details of what I was feeling, but she reminded me that God was at work in my life—that He had planted many little seeds in my heart and they were just waiting to grow, sprout, and blossom. She didn’t have an exact answer for me, but she encouraged me to keep seeking God. In that moment, I felt God was sending me a little divine reminder that He wanted me to keep dreaming and that all those tiny desires sprouting up were divine jewels of direction He wanted me to pay attention to.
In the following months, new desires seemed to bud—ones that surprised me—such as the desire to write books. This desire felt as though it came out of nowhere, but at the same time it felt like a puzzle piece that I had been looking for had fallen into place. It seemed that little hints of this writing dream had been planted along my journey. As I looked to God in that season, He faithfully steered my heart.
Like a runner passing a baton in a relay race, sweet daughter of Christ, I pass on this gem of encouragement to you: God is at work in your life, guiding you to the dreams He has for you.
He has planted all these little seeds in your heart, and they are just waiting to grow, sprout, and blossom. He wants you to keep dreaming, and He uses all your desires and dreams to get you to the ones He made you for.
His dreams are a perfect fit for you. It’s as if He’s the choreographer and you’re the dancer. Because He knows you so well and created you to be different from anyone else in the universe, He knows the dance in life that’s perfect for you. Just as a choreographer draws on a dancer’s strengths and individuality to create the most beautiful dance for her, God longs to put into place dreams that He choreographed just for you before you even entered this world. Instead of spending a lifetime chasing dreams that are a better fit for someone else, He longs for you to embrace a better dance: your dance. The path to your own unique dance is often hidden in the desires of your heart.
God Uses the Desires of Your Heart
I think we all struggle at times to know whether listening to the desires of our hearts is a good or a bad thing. My sweet mom has been the person in my life who has taught me to dream with God by tuning in to Him through the desires of my heart. Here is one of my favorite Bible verses she introduced to me back when I was a young lady on the edge of adulthood: “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). I love this verse because it gives us permission to listen to the desires of our hearts, but there is a little twist to the verse: “Take delight in the Lord.” Delighting in God and Him giving us the desires of our hearts can sometimes feel like two different things. Mom taught me that when we delight in God first and foremost—in a sense, make our dreaming about knowing Him—He shapes our desires. And that’s when we can listen to the desires of our hearts because they are in tune with God’s heart. When we are tuned in to God’s heart regarding the dreams He has for us, He delights to give them to us.
Desires will ebb and flow throughout our dreaming journeys. We can put every desire in God’s arms, and He will guide us to the dreams He has preplanned for us. God is the Dream-Planter. He loves to plant little seeds of dreams in our hearts that He will use to lead us through life, give us great joy, guide us in living out the gifts He has put in us, and help us make an impact on the world around us.
As I look back over my own dreaming dance, sometimes I laugh at how a little desire would seem to pop up out of nowhere and shift something in my dreaming path. One example is when I showed up late to a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting. It was the first one of the year, and I really didn’t know anybody. As I rushed through the door, this lady, who I later found out was the speaker coordinator, came running up to me and with excitement and enthusiasm hugged me and nearly shouted, “Are you our speaker for today?” The speaker for that day was also late and also had long, brown hair. Eyes wide, I assured her I was not the speaker for the day, and somewhere deep inside this little conversation with myself took place: I could never, ever do that. Please don’t make me! How scary. What would I even have to say? But that does sound kind of fun. But who am I? I could never, ever do that. The speaker finally did show up, and I went home that day and scribbled those little thoughts to God in one of my journals. I gave Him that teeny, tiny desire even though I didn’t know whether it was from Him. A couple years later, I began speaking to MOPS groups. Now speaking to groups of women has become a little dream that makes my heart dance. God took a small desire and used it to steer me in the direction of His plans for me. I think it’s incredibly beautiful how He does that.
This dreaming dance requires us to constantly check in with God to see if our little desires or big passions are something He wants us to pay attention to. Sometimes our desires and God’s desires don’t match up, and that’s okay, but we must be willing to allow God to shift our desires if He sees fit. That is part of dreaming with Him. He will keep our hearts on course. We just need to take to God the desires, dreams, and ideas that sprout up in our hearts. Typically, they will feel like crazy ideas. Some may never even come to fruition. The desire that comes over me to be a country music singer is a great desire, but y’all, singing is not one of my strengths. Deciding if that desire in particular is one God wants me to pursue or not is very clear to me because I do not have the vocals to match the desire. But other desires can be trickier to decipher. Sometimes I bring a desire of my heart to God, and I cannot tell how He feels about it. That’s when I wish He would send me an email! I have brought other desires to God as well, and it’s almost as if the moment I bring them to Him and say them out loud or scribble them into a journal, I’m suddenly very aware that they’re not something I should pursue. But when we give ourselves permission to express a desire out loud to God, to bring it to Him, He takes it and clarifies His purposes for us.
Dreaming in All Shapes and Sizes
God’s heart for all of us is that we would see that dreams come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us are going to have dreams that involve a stage, lights, and an audience, and some of us are going to have dreams that no one sees. Some of us have wild, impossible dreams. Some of us love the quieter kind. Some of us dream of the spotlight, while some of us want to steer clear of it! For some of us, our dreams revolve around our homes. For some of us, our dreams reach into faraway places. Also, we will have multiple dreams throughout our dreaming dances. We have big dreams and everyday dreams. Glamorous dreams and simple dreams. Every dream and desire is valuable in God’s eyes. His heart for us is to dream in all kinds of ways.
He wants us to dream big . . . and small and in all kinds of shapes and sizes. God wants us to dream with Him so that our hearts dance with joy and purpose, so that we get to know Him in deeper ways and point others to Him.
As we talked about in the previous chapter, remember this: He divinely designed your heart, mind, and soul to fit specific callings. And He uses the twists and turns of your heart shape to draw you into all He created you to be. Oh, how He wants you to be all He designed you to be. He does not want you to miss out on the dreams He has planned for you.
Prayer, Scripture, and Reflection
for Your Dreaming Heart
Lord, make me a dreamer, because dreaming draws me closer to You. Help me listen to the desires of my heart, but at the same time, let me take each one to You. Help me decipher which desires are Your desires for my life and which are my own. Help me be willing to let You shape and mold the desires of my heart into the dreams You have for my life.
“May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:17
“When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” Psalm 94:19
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11
1. Do you allow yourself to dream or have you turned off the dreaming switch in your heart?
2. What are some of your big dreams? What are some of your small dreams?
3. Which desires of your heart do you need to bring to God? Are there any you feel Him asking you to let go of?
4. What emotions surface when you think about the dreams of your heart or the ones you consider giving yourself permission to dream?
5. Describe a time you let go of a dream and it turned out for good.
6. As you give yourself permission to dream, what effect does it have on your heart?