My favorite paper weight

I spend a lot of time in the dream process—dream creation, dream initiation, dream execution, dream celebration, and dream evaluation. Some dreams never make it past creation. Others fade during execution. But a few make it all the way to celebration. From my time spent in dream evaluation, here are eight things that I’ve concluded can block our dreams from becoming reality.

1.  Distance- We’ve got to stay close to the Dream Maker Himself! When our lives get crazy busy, it’s easy for the distance between us and God to gradually increase without detection.
2. Unpreparedness- I heard someone say recently, “Luck is preparation meeting the moment of opportunity.” Think about your dream. If you got ‘that phone call’ today, would you be ready?
3. Hesitation- The moment of opportunity may be just that—a moment. Don’t let fear or doubt cause you to miss it.
4. Misalignment- On more than one occasion, I’ve had dreams that were not aligned with God’s plan for my life. Wow, am I glad they didn’t materialize!
5. Rigidity- Dreams can’t be set in stone. They must be fluid and flexible. A friend posted on Facebook, “Sometimes you think you see the whole picture and then God opens your eyes even wider!”
6. Pride- The Bible says it in four words: God opposes the proud. No dream can break through that opposition!
7. Disobedience- We can’t expect success if we have areas in our lives where we knowingly choose to disobey God’s commands.
8. Selfish Ambition- Some dreams are for personal gain—fame, wealth, power. But what if we stepped beyond ourselves? What if we had dreams that could help another person or thousands of people or could touch the world in some positive way? Those are the kinds of dreams that God likes to make happen.

What is your most extravagant dream?

(If you would like to dream further, check out these Bible verses that inspired this post: 2 Kings 18:5-7, Psalm 37:4, Proverbs 19:21, Philippians 2:3, and James 4:6.)