The Life of a Dream Chaser

I'm going to be transparent here... dreams keep me going. Dreams of what's possible. Dreams of the future. I have an aversion to the past and an annoyance with the present. In fact, I have a hard time remembering things from my childhood. Each move, each transition has felt like a new sector in my mental hard drive. The experiences are there, but they feel like a whole other life. It's the way I'm wired. I've got my eyes on what's ahead... always. And it doesn't matter what I'm going through, what I'm enduring... as long as I've got a dream for the future, I'm good.

Know what I've found to be the two biggest barriers to accomplishing dreams?

1. The standard of living to which I've grown accustomed
2. The nay-saying of other people

It's never capability.

Of course, it might be, but most of us never find out for sure because we get tripped up on these two hurdles. Dream-chasers have to find away to remove these factors.

Comments

[tony sheng]

you sound like big time StrengthsFinder futuristic - which is me too.
love it.

what in your experience is the best thing to do about #1. i think standard of living is a huge issue for all of us Christ followers in the western Church.

[james f]

Francis Chan is very challenging in this regard Tony... he's got a great book called "Crazy Love" which outlines what he does / do

1. Downsized the house he lives in
2. Decided his church would give away 50% of everything it gets in
3. Built / are building an outside auditorium for their church instead of a fancy $20m church building

Obviously this is very church related... but if a leader lives like that he can influence the rest of his church

Here's some other things which may help which I've been working through

1. Personally I don't see tithing in the NT, I see giving, so not fixing myself to a 10% but to be as generous as possible,so constantly pushing myself to give more and more.

2. Think about buying everything but essentials and only then vowing to buy things in sales but also buying less - I used to buy loads of DVDs, CDs etc but not so many now. I used to have lots of pairs of shoes, now I only have one.

3. I'm not too far of having children - mentally preparing myself to not sacrifice 'radical' living and not to get sucked up into making my kids my priority instead of God first and foremost.

4. Remember that Jesus said "Do not commit adultery" but also said "Do not worry...." - In Jesus eyes they carry the same weight.

5. Challenge myself by reading and learning from others who do this better, I can't think of anyone better than John Piper. His book Don't Waste Your Life is good. He receives no royalties from any of his books (most of them are free online as well). He's lived in the same inner city house in Minneapolis since he moved there and he talks about his "wartime lifestyle". Of course we can be very quick to disagree with that kind of living but in reality, he just loves God more and really takes to heart about "treasure in heaven"

6. Get all the scriptures together about uncomfortable living, living lightly etc and meditate on them frequently.

These are just some of the things I've done / am doing in trying to battle consumerism and safe living. It's not easy and I don't think I'm perfect. My wife and I have more money than we've ever had and I am still more tied into my Excel budget worksheet than ever.

If anyone has any other suggestions then please put those up

James
(First time commenter from UK, love the blog Ben)

[Beth Taylor]

You are speaking my language!! Bruce Wilkinson, in his book Dreamgiver, calls the naysayers "border bullies". They used to bother me, but now they just fuel my fire to run. Great post.

[Michael Harrison]

Ben, I have continued to read this post for the last 7 days or so and have been continually encouraged to dream. Dream big. Stop listening to the "can't" sayings and the negative. Thanks for pressing me and stretching me. Cannot wait to be at Catalyst...greetings from Virginia! MICHAEL