Take Off the Weights:

I have recently finished a book called, “Permission to Dream,” by Christine Caine.  I love Christine Caine, and all the work she has done with A21, an anti-human trafficking organization.  She also empowers women to be the best Christian leaders they can possibly be through her organization, Propel Women.  She is an inspiring woman to follow, and I highly recommend reading one or all of her books. 

I love the idea of permitting ourselves to dream.  It is great to have dreams and to believe God has great plans for us.  I realized I have had many dreams in the past I have given up on after I have been discouraged.  For one example, I had great dreams of being a professional singer. I was going to study music and singing.  However, I never really continued on with following these dreams after I struggled to get into the Iowa All-state choir.  No matter how much I seemed to practice, I started to have more feeling I would never actually be chosen for this prestigious choir.  I still did sing in choir in college and I have also joined a community choir group in the past few years as an adult, so I have kept my passion of singing alive, but it was never to the extent of where I thought it would be.

Some dreams I have learned to fall back in love with and learned to pursue again.  For example, I dreamed of being a published author when I was a very young child.  These last few years, I have really developed more skills when it comes to writing.  I love writing for this blog and getting to better process all the thoughts I have swirling around my head.  I have also written a small devotional book and had it published.  There are still many things I want to accomplish when it comes to writing, and I dream of writing more books and continuing to be a better writer continuously.   

My favorite part of reading the first chapter was looking at the good metaphor about running our Christian race.  One quote I loved from this book was:

“As we progress in running our race, we naturally go through times of receiving, releasing, multiplying, and growing.  And the whole time, as the Enemy sees us faithfully and consistently moving through these God-ordained times; he knows his territory is threatened.  Therefore, he plots and schemes to thwart us in our run, to trip us up, to stop us in our tracks. For this reason, we must be alert and throw off any weights that would slow us down or give him a weapon to use against us.” (13-14)

I love the alliteration of running a race related to running in our Christian Walk. I love it because it really does show a lot about our Christian journey and how we can grow closer to God through many ups and downs, with the necessary nutrition and conditions, as well as milestones.  

There are many weights we can tend to carry with us.  Besides the fears and doubts we often carry, we can also carry shame.  We can carry around the bad things people have said to us or the shame of bad decisions we have made in the past.  It is important to learn to grow from past mistakes and decisions.  The shame we have will actually hold us back from learning more and growing closer to Christ.  It is important to ask for forgiveness and then accept that forgiveness and then let the shame stay in the past. 

Other weights we carry could be the thoughts of others or the feeling of comparison.  Sometimes when I am running, I can often compare myself to others.  I can feel insecure when I am slower than others.  When I was a cross-country coach this last season, I would often compare myself to the other woman coach who was faster than me.  I would feel insecure and bad about myself for not being able to run as fast or as well.  I also can compare myself when I do better than others.  I can start to become too confident in my abilities when I do have an excellent race, or I am able to run a lot farther than others.  Either way, this feeling of expectations and comparisons is a weight I am caring around while I am running.  I can do the same thing when I am living my Christian life.  I can often compare myself and my Christian journey to others.  However, this only holds me back in how well I am living my Christian life.  We all know the best way to run is to run forward and to look straight ahead, so it should be the same thing to do when running our Christian race. 

One other verse I wanted to highlight from the Bible that speaks of this is Philippians 4:13 and this says, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”  This is a very popular verse and for good reason.  However, it is important to remember it is only through God’s plans where we are able to accomplish everything through his strength.  However, at times when we have been given these dreams, we can see God’s plans and advice.   

The challenge for you this week is to spend time reflecting on your dreams for your future.  What are some of the dreams you have given up on?  What are some dreams you still have deep in our hearts that we have been too afraid to go farther in?  What are some of the ways we have stopped pursuing our dreams? Then after reflection, spend some time praying to God for advice on pursuing more dreams in the future.