Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
Matthew 11:28–30 Message
Without the Lord’s help, following our dreams can become a frantic chase involving a rhythm of stress and angst as we take things into our own hands, do things our way, and pursue our dreams as if it’s all up to us. But when we surrender to God’s lead, He invites us into a different rhythm—one led by Him. It doesn’t mean we don’t work hard, only that we don’t have to chase and force our dreams because we are inviting the God of the universe into the process to guide us and lead the way. He takes off the pressure of holding up our dreams on our own and instead guides our hearts through every step of our dreaming journey. As we step into His rhythm of grace, understanding that ultimately He is in control, we no longer have to chase the dream down or frantically force the dream into fruition. Instead, we find a place of keeping company with Jesus in our dreaming journeys—a place of prayer and rest and embracing the season we’re in.
Praying through Your Dreaming Journey
One aspect of God’s rhythm of grace is prayer. Prayer is the rudder to our dreams. As we pray, God directs and guides, keeping us on the course He has created for us.
When we pray about our dreams, we invite God into our lives—something He longs for. Through prayer, we bring our dreams to the God who turned water into wine, multiplied bread to feed thousands, healed the sick, lame, blind, and deaf, and raised Jesus from the dead. In today’s fast-paced, technology-based, insta-everything world, we tend to leave out the miraculous. But God is still working miracles in the world, and He wants to work miracles in the dreams of our hearts.
After I had let go of my dream to dance for a big company, I waited for some direction from God. I was an apprentice at Ballet Austin at the time, and it was nearing the end of the ballet season, which is when decisions are made about hiring new dancers and letting others go. I would have loved to have danced for Ballet Austin as a company member, but I knew there were no openings, or so I thought, at the time. There were ten apprentices, so even if the main company had an opening, my chances were quite slim. Typically, if the main company has no opening, the apprentices are let go so they can search for a position with a different company. And like I mentioned earlier, finding a dancing job at any size company is quite difficult.
During one of the last rehearsals of that season at Ballet Austin, we were in the middle of rehearsing for Don Quixote. I was doing my thing—stretching out my calf muscles, reviewing corrections, steps, and musical cues in my head—when I felt a tap on my shoulder. To my surprise, it was my artistic director. He was the director of the main company, while another director handled the apprentice company. I worked with both very closely in rehearsals, but of course, as a young aspiring ballerina, I was a little intimated by both of them. My dancing career was in their hands in a sense, and so I always wanted to be on my game around them. He asked me to come down to his office on our next five-minute break. My first thought was that I was in trouble for something, but I couldn’t imagine what it could be. Per his request, at the next break and with butterflies in my stomach, I headed down the stairwell to his office. My heart was in my throat. As I sat down across from my director, he looked very serious. He mentioned something about me understudying a role because one of the dancers was struggling with an injury. Then he stopped for a moment and called in the director of the apprentice company. She came in with a bit of a smile on her face. They informed me that one of the dancers had decided to hang up her pointe shoes, so they had one opening in the company, and they offered me the position. My jaw literally dropped. I cried and laughed, and then I hugged them both. I think I was jumping up and down too. I really never dreamed that dancing for Ballet Austin’s main company was an option for me. I thought either there were no openings, or if one became available, they would not choose me. The competition for a spot was fierce. It was amazing to realize that God had a good plan all along. Ballet Austin was and still is an excellent company, one I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to dance for. I danced there for a total of five years before Brian and I moved to Dallas, where I continued my dancing career with Ballet Arlington. I will always feel indebted to my directors at both companies for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to dance professionally.
God’s plans for me were far better than I could even imagine. And His dreams for you are far better than you can imagine. Looking back, I realize that God wants us to pray and trust Him even when we don’t know what the answers should be.
We discover His beautiful plans as we release our desires and dreams in prayer. Sometimes we really want our options to work out the way we want them to work out. Life can feel disappointing in those moments when we don’t get our dream job or the good news we were hoping for, and I have had plenty of those moments along my journey. (We are going to talk more about that in the upcoming chapters.) So I encourage you to pray about the dreams of your heart even when you cannot imagine how the situation should turn out. Prayer invites God to work out the details.
But He doesn’t want us to pray only about our big, impossible dreams. He wants us to pray about everything—even the tiniest details!
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:6–7)
Our relationship with Him grows sweeter as we spend time with Him in prayer. He begins to unfold His dreams for us and move those dreams forward as we settle into a rhythm of prayer. Also, we get to know Him better and experience His peace in a deeper way as we bring Him each burden. He keeps us in His lighter, freer rhythm of grace.
Contentment in Your Current Season
Another aspect of God’s rhythm of grace is discovering contentment in our current season. Sometimes we miss the gift of our current season as we are dreaming about future ones.
In 2010, I had just had my third son. I was one busy mama with a baby, an almost two-year-old, and a five-year-old. I was tired. But the thing was, I was tired of feeling so tired. Getting my babies to sleep all night never came easy, so I was living in a fog of sleep deprivation and fatigue.
One day while my older two sons were at preschool, I crawled up into my bed hoping to catch a quick nap while they were taken care of and the baby slept. In that moment, I felt so frustrated that I couldn’t function well enough to do more than take a nap. The night before had actually been a fairly good night for us in regard to sleep, so I was disappointed that I still felt so exhausted. I was in a Bible study group during that season and had told my leader a few weeks before about the dream in my heart to write one day. But in this weary, sleep-deprived moment, I remember thinking there was no way I would ever feel energetic enough to do that.
My leader happened to call me that day as I was settling in for my nap to ask me how I was doing. Tears sprang to my eyes as I expressed to her how I was tired of being tired. It kind of makes me giggle now, but in that moment, my fatigue and exhaustion were totally consuming. I told her that I don’t know why I was so tired because the night before had been pretty smooth. In a gentle voice and with great wisdom from being a few seasons ahead of me in motherhood, she reminded me that this tiredness and sleep deprivation were part of a season. She reminded me that I wasn’t just tired from the night before—in reality, I hadn’t slept consistently in five years! Also, my body had been through a lot in the last five years. We calculated that I had been pregnant for a total of twenty-seven months between my three sons, and I had been nursing for almost two years. Add to that the lack of consistent sleep, and she sweetly diagnosed me as one tired mama deep in the trenches of mothering little ones. She challenged me to let go of my expectations of being super productive or pursuing big dreams during this season and instead encouraged me to be gentle on myself. My heart started to feel a little relief in that moment as I listened to her. Next, she nearly shouted through the phone, “When is your baby going to be four?” We did the math together and again she shouted, this time with such joy and exuberance, “Summer of 2014!” that I was somewhat confused. She told me that when my youngest turned four, I would be sleeping consistently all night, every night (I would have liked to have gotten that in writing), my body would have recovered fully from pregnancy and nursing, and I would have much more time to take care of myself and consider the dreams budding in my heart.
At first I felt even more overwhelmed at the thought that four years seemed like a long time away. But then, as we talked, she helped me realize that 2014 would be a new season. And somehow in that moment, my heart found relief and comfort as I saw these seasons from a new perspective. I hung up the phone and drifted off into a deep sleep. I learned to embrace my current season and enjoy doing the things right in front of me instead of constantly wishing for the next season. The summer of 2014 came, and my Bible study leader was right. We were all sleeping through the night consistently, and I had much more time and margin in my day to dip my toes into my writing dream. I think a delightful thing about God is that He continues to give us dreams throughout all the seasons of our lives. We will always be tempted to skip to the next season or dream, but God longs for us to be fully present in our current season.
During my years of dancing, there was a constant emphasis on our musicality when dancing. It became like second nature for me to dance “with the music,” for every step, every movement, and every breath to go with each beat of the music. Learning this vital skill takes years of practice and intentional focus. It doesn’t make sense to be “off the music.” Dancing off the music would mean falling behind or rushing ahead of the music, as if the dancing does not go with or match the music. When a dancer is off the music, many problems arise. For example, the audience may find the performance difficult to watch because it distracts from the overall flow of the show. It can wreak havoc on a group of dancers—we’re talking traffic jams and collisions onstage—who have to be perfectly in tune with each other. It can stir up conflict among the dancers because that one dancer who is off the music becomes the target of bad vibes from the artistic director and causes everyone to have to put in additional rehearsal hours. (And I have so been that dancer off the music, by the way!) It restricts the dancer who is off from dancing freely, with abandon, because being off the music does not make sense to the body or the brain. It frustrates the dancer. But when all the dancers are with the music, something magnificent happens—pure beauty and impressive unison! When a dancer is on her music, not rushing ahead or lingering behind, it’s as though the music carries her, freeing her to reach her greatest potential.
In the same way, God is here in this moment and in this season, offering to carry us through it. When we jump ahead mentally to the next season, we miss out on His beautiful rhythm of grace. Yes, we can still dream with God in our current season, trusting His plans for a future one. But we mustn’t neglect today. When we welcome our current season and choose to be in the present moment with God, we’re free to enjoy and thrive in our current season, in perfect unison with God’s good timing.
Embracing the Process
Another aspect of staying in this rhythm of grace is learning to embrace the process of following a dream with God.
The rehearsal process for ballet was certainly not the highlight of the job for me. I could hardly wait to get to performance day. We all have a tendency to want to see the good, fun part—the result of a dream. But as we learn to embrace the hard part, the journey, and the process, we discover a new level of joy and contentment in our lives. It’s in the process that we find God’s guiding hand and learn to lean on Him for our every step.
Oftentimes we want overnight success, but the realization of our dreams takes time. All the small steps in our dreaming journeys matter. We easily become discouraged when it feels like a dream is taking forever to come to fruition. The process is where God works in our hearts, hones our skills, directs our hearts, and loves on us. The process is the good stuff of following a dream. It will involve setbacks, highs, lows, frustrations, and breakthroughs. There will be parts of the process that require great patience, hard work, and a full schedule, and there will be slower parts of the process where God teaches us to enjoy the ride.
When we lean in to the process, what we’re actually doing is trusting God with our dream. We’re trusting His timetable, His way, and His plan. In this trust, we can let go of our tendency to rush things and lean back into a rhythm of rest. Know that dreaming with God is a lifelong process.
With God, it is possible to dream and rest at the same time, trusting our dreams to the One who also calls us to a sweet rhythm of rest. This rest is part of His rhythm of grace and is more of a heart check, a knowing that God is in control of our lives so we don’t have to live at a chasing, striving, and stressful pace. This is where the sweet spot of dreaming with God is found. While dancing, I was always coached to “push down into the floor,” while at the same time “stand tall” as if the tip of my head was going through the ceiling. This vital posture makes a dancer strong, stable, and grounded; it also adds an elegance to her dancing. In the very same way, God invites us to keep dreaming while we embrace the process. He invites us to settle in, nestle down, and push down into the process, while at the same time look to Him as He leads us toward the dreams ahead. So we remain strong, stable, and grounded wherever we are in the process because we are standing tall with our feet planted in contentment and our dreaming hearts secure in His lead.
Another aspect of rest in our dreaming is looking to Jesus for His ways and wisdom. I love how Jesus said, “Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it” (Matt. 11:28–30 Message). It seems to me that in this verse, Jesus was saying that by getting away with Him, we recover our lives—or in this instance, our dreams. As we walk with Him, work with Him, and partner with Him instead of chasing our dreams on our own, we can simply watch how He does it.
You know that dream in your heart that has been gnawing at you as you read these pages? You can let go of trying to figure out how to make it happen. You can set it down, retreat with Jesus, and look to Him for help. He will show you how to truly rest from the striving. Getting away with Jesus is the most productive thing you can do in living out your dreams.
We really can let go of the chase. We really can let go of trying to make our dreams happen. We really can rest back into a rhythm of grace. Every moment oozes with purpose when we enter into His beautiful rhythm of grace. And here’s the sweetest news: settling into this rhythm sets us on His perfect course for us. We can let go of managing, manipulating, and strategizing our lives and instead focus on Him. Because that’s where He meets us with dreams and joys we did not see coming. I imagine He can barely contain His excitement as we get to a place of letting go and letting Him lead our dreaming journeys.
Writing about this brings up emotions of relief for me. It reminds me that I don’t have to do life, mommyhood, marriage, dancing, writing, or dreaming by striving on my own. I don’t have to become who God created me to be in my own strength. He takes off the pressure. And when I embrace His graceful pace, I feel the joy bubble up.
Each of us will find unique ways to settle into this rhythm of grace. My all-time favorite way can be summed up in two wonderful words: porch time (and maybe one more word: coffee). Get me on a porch, birds chirping, sun casting beams through the branches of a redbud tree, flowers looking lovely, Bible open . . . just me, my Bible, a journal, my Lord, and my coffee . . . that’s where I find God’s rhythm. That’s where I get back to Him when I’ve gotten caught up in the world’s pace. That’s where I draw near to Him and He gently draws me back into His way of grace.
You know, some of the most beautiful moments of a pas de deux occur when the pair is just standing still. Those moments of little movement, only the subtle gesture of a hand or the look of emotion in their eyes, can be the most impressive. I believe that in this dance of life, those moments when we retreat with Jesus to settle into His rhythm are our most beautiful.
Prayer, Scripture, and Reflection
for Your Dreaming Heart
Lord, thank You for inviting me into Your beautiful rhythm of grace as I dream with You. Show me specifically what steps I can take to settle into Your rhythm. Help me settle into this way of grace so I can find a deeper relationship with You through prayer. I want to embrace the season I am in, take my hands off my dreams, and rest in knowing You have them.
“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14
“The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” Psalm 23:1–3
“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
“In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” Isaiah 63:9
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
1. Which aspect of God’s rhythm of grace speaks to your heart the most? Prayer? Seasons? Process? Rest?
2. What are some practical ways you can settle into God’s rhythm of grace?
3. What dreams of your heart and details of your everyday life do you desire to bring to God in prayer?
4. What season are you in and how can you sink down into it even more?
5. In what ways do you find yourself tempted to skip to the next season or dream?
6. Where are you in the process of one of the dreams of your heart and how can you fully embrace the process?
7. In what ways can you let go of striving to make your dream happen?