Practical Faith

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Practical Faith

Envision Your Future With God

September 17, 2024 • Rev. Dr. Nicholas A. Cash • Episode 235

0:00 | 4:00

What’s your dream? What are you dreaming about with God? What are your hopes for yourself? for your character? your family? your future? your legacy? These are ALL great things to have a vision for in your life with the Lord. Depending on the size of your dream, you might be just 10 steps away, or it might be 50,000 steps away. But once you envision with the Lord where you want to go with Him, and you start taking steps forward on that path with Him, you will be getting closer and closer to actually achieving that future in the Lord that you have envisioned for yourself.

Last time on “Practical Faith,” we gave ourselves both the space and permission to dream with God about our future in Him. Just freedom to dream – without evaluation or critique – just an opportunity for us to ask the God who made us and loves us to give us a sense of His hope and His plans and His dreams for our future in Him.

So, what’s your dream? What are you dreaming about with God? What are your hopes for yourself? What are your hopes for your character? For your family? For your future? For your legacy?

Now, if I took a survey, I bet we would hear all kinds of things that our listeners are dreaming about with the Lord and envisioning for your future:
• some of you are dreaming about things related to your career
• some of you have dreams about your education or professional development
• some of you have dreams for your family, or friendships, or another relationship
• some of you are probably thinking of things related to your character, or your personality, or some other element of personal development that you are dreaming for yourself with the Lord
• some are dreaming about specific goals you would like to accomplish, or achievements you want to reach
• maybe some of you have dreams about things related to what you hope to pass along to others – something about your legacy or your impact on the lives of other people.

Listen: these are ALL great things to dream about with God! These are ALL things to have a vision for in your life with the Lord.

Let’s look together at one man’s God-given dream in the Bible. In the Book of Genesis, chapter 12, the Lord speaks to a man named Abram, and this is what He says:

The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Abram has a dream. He has a God-given vision of his future in the Lord. And it is a very good dream. It is a good and hopeful vision of the future.

Now, let’s imagine that you are standing in a very large room – imagine you’re in like a big auditorium or gymnasium or something – and you are standing in one corner of the room – and at the far corner of the room is your dream – that’s where you want to be.

Now if I said, “try to touch your dream from where you are. Try to reach out and grab it,” you couldn’t do it; you would be way too far away; you couldn’t reach all the way to the other side of the room. But at least you could see where it is from where you are – and hopefully you might begin to see a path through all the furniture and obstacles that you could take to get there. That’s what it means to have vision.

And having a vision of your future in Christ is huge. It’s massive! If you can see where you are headed, then you can begin to chart out a course with the Lord for getting yourself there.

And once you have a direction in which to move, then you can begin progressing forward, and then your dream is just a matter of taking the steps in front of you until you reach your goal – until your dream becomes your reality.

Now depending on the size of your dream, you might be just 10 steps away, or it might be 50,000 steps away! But once you envision with the Lord where you want to go with Him, and you start taking steps forward on that path with Him, you will be getting closer and closer to actually achieving that future in the Lord that you have envisioned for yourself.

We’ll stop there for today and pick back up with this discussion of dreaming with the Lord next time right here on “Practical Faith.”