Sometimes the best dreams are found during the detours.

On the way to pick my sister Siobhan up from the airport on Thursday, I made a quick stop at the library.  In typical me style, I ended up a bit turned around.  After a series of wrong turns, I found one of the loveliest creeks,  nestled away on a street I would have never noticed if not for my increased awareness of my surroundings as a result of being temporarily lost.

Mmm.  Increased awareness.  As a result of losing a bearing on my surroundings.  Opening my senses to something new.

I think that moment taught me a truth I will hold in my heart for all my days.  Don't discount the inconvenient; the turns that fail to make much sense in the present.

As I continued the two hour drive to Sacramento, which mainly consists of the occasional rest stop and flat land, I turned on some music and got lost in my thoughts, prayer, whatever you want to call it.  Suddenly I found myself asking God, "WHY did I come here?  Was it for rest?  Because I feel like that is happening for me, and it has been beautiful.  But I don't want to rest forever.  Was it so you could restore my dreams, the things that felt shaken up in my heart from the craziness of this last year?  I don't see how that can take too much time. When do I get on with the journey?"

The answer came last night as I was listening to Erica Greve speak on how each of us were made for a God size story, and until that is the kind of story we are living, our hearts will always feel restless.  Then she said something so interesting.  She said that God is wanting to recalibrate the hearts of His people right now.  And then she said the thing that made my heart respond, "Oh...I think You may have brought me here for this..."

"God wants to give you real problems."

Not the kind of problems we so easily get caught up in: what will I eat?  wear?  how will i pay rent?  what will my next facebook status be? who will I marry?  can I trust you with the little details of my life?

because the answer to those questions is already a resounding, "I TAKE CARE OF YOU SO WELL!" in Matthew 7.

So now the question is, "Who will ask me for the real  problems?  The ones that require actual faith?  Who will ask me for nations?  For whole villages?  For whole lineages and cultures to be completely visited and changed by my goodness, my glory?"

And as soon as she said that, I knew why I came here to california.  I came here for the kind of heart calibration that begins to surrender so completely to Father that I can't help but ask Him to give me real problems...to give me the kinds of dreams that actually change the world, instead of just sounding like nice words.  The dreams I was made for, the ones that I'm discovering in what feels like a detour.  The surrender that gives up everything because He is worthy and so beautiful.  How could you ever say no when you look into His eyes?

Yes.  That's what He is doing if I will just surrender.  Recalibrating my heart.  Realigning it with Him.  How He thinks.  How he sees.  What he hears.  How he moves.  Breaking my heart in the best possible way.  Removing the hindrances to love as I just let Him love away all the things that hold me back from pure, unconditional love.  He moves in suddenlies, unaffected by our sense of timing, so when He says it's time to just hang out with him all the time in the secret place until He says differently, I want to say yes.  Because maybe it's in that rest that the dreams come, where faith like a mustard seed begins to move actual mountains and watches them fall into the sea.

I want that kind of faith.  I was made for a God sized story.  You were made for a God sized story.  Our hearts won't be satisfied until we are living within the largeness of all that He is and all that He is making available to us on this journey.


"You said there would be joy in the laying down
You said there would be joy in the letting go
You said there would be joy in the giving up my life, and now I see

Your river it rushes to the lowest place, Your river it rushes to the lowest place
Your river it rushes to the lowest place -- Your river it rushes

Come and rush over me, Come and rush over me
Come and rush over me, Let the river flow

I bow down - I get low
I open up my heart to receive your love..."
-Laura Hackett