When Dreams Dry Up
I came to a startling realization this year. I don’t have any dreams.
Not the ones at night that have you scratching your head when you wake up wondering if the Lord and your subconscious are trying to have words with you while you’re in a state in which you cannot argue.
The dreams I’m referring to are the ones that are a little exciting and a lot scary. Aspirations that fuel the mundane in pursuit of the extraordinary, filling your thoughts of what could be and asking “why can’t it?”
Those. Those are the ones I seem to be lacking. When I would hear people talk of said dreams I’d struggle to find my own in the recesses of my heart. “Doesn’t everyone want something?” I’d think. “What could possibly be wrong with me?”
I used to have them - I remember that. They were the moisture that kept fresh daydreams flourishing, filling the deep well from which I would draw them over and over again. Now, it seemed, I had experienced a mass evaporation of any imagination that would dare make me believe I could be anything. This was my current accepted existence. Content? Yes. Inspired? Dry.
It is something to slip quietly into a satisfactorily unhappy state - making a quiet home there, unaware that it has become your accepted address. Settled.
Part of me wishes I had an exciting event to relay to you that has jolted me into a different reality. That some grand event caused me to pack up, move house and burn the one I used to live in. I have no such story.
It has been a slow awakening. Not an immersion into a pool of refreshed inspiration but, rather, a drop at a time. A bit of water collected, allowing me to see that the well could be full again, someday. Soon?
The inevitable question in all this would be, where did the water go? What event made me abandon the hours I used to spend wadding around in “What if. I could.” Feeling the pouring out of “I can. I must” like a torrent that would, occasionally, make its way from my heart to spill its overflow from my eyes. I used to feel. Deep. Now? Shallow.
I’m beginning to dream again. I did not allow myself the luxury for so long. I'm finding myself relearning how to do what used to come so unencumbered and natural to me. Thirsty.
What I am finding is that two very important and unexpected things are necessary for me to reclaim this space within me - as if reclaiming space within one’s own self is not a foreign enough thought:
Repentance & Healing.
I let go of my dreams because, as much as any remnants of pride would not like me to admit it, I did not believe the Dream Giver. In Him? Certainly. His thoughts towards me - or that He would take time to have any of those at all? Hardly.
The years I spent accepting the notion that my limits, which I reached so often, were also His. A lack of affirmation and a few handfuls of rejection was adopted as accurate judgment. That they knew me better than He. Longing to be taken under a wing, value seen - but never was. In truth, I invested in the idea that my insecurities were more important than His power and took myself out of the running to be His favorite, His beloved. I saved Him from the work of working on me, disregarding all He’d done to do His work through me. Foolish.
And so, brick by brick, I dismantled the well-spring of what was planted masterfully inside of me, watched the water flow out onto the sand convinced it was sensible to acclimate to an arid existence that was never mine to begin with.
A slow shift began, however, after I consistently spent time with Him. In all honesty, it is rarely earth-shattering, epically shaking time. But, it is time in the truth. With the Truth. And, in the presence of such, lies must die. There is no other course. They wither away, dehydrated by the wealth of the Word and you begin to see clearly through the “what” you thought to the “Who” that is.
And that truth is healing, of all things, my imagination. Yes, we pray for the bodies to be whole, but perspectives get broken, too. But He can put anything back together. Everything.
I used to have dreams. It seems I still do - though I’m reticent to say so. They are growing back - buds emerging and taking form. Healing is happening, but it takes time. God is giving them back to me and in trusting Him I am accepting them as I would any gift from someone who so clearly loves me.
It is something to see, when in a dry place, that time spent with the Dream Giver creates the cessation of searching for where water went. I am filled by spending time with the living embodiment of it. Here am I. Quenched.
May He do exceedingly, abundantly, above.
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If you find yourself afraid to dream, I want to share what my personal prayer has been on this journey that you might, too, begin to trust God with your heart and imagination - stepping into the places He’s already prepared for you to go.
Thank you, Father, for making me Your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works You have already prepared for me (Eph 2:10). I rebuke & renounce the lie that I am not called, capable, or created for a purpose - that I am not worthy of your thoughts towards me (Psalm 139:17). Forgive me for believing it. Your power is more important than my insecurity and your strength so much more than my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-11). Forgive me for not having the confidence in You to accept the truth of my identity:
I am loved by You. (Matt 25:34 | Eph 4:2-6)
I am equipped with every spiritual blessing.
I was chosen in You before the foundations of the world.
I am regarded as holy & blameless by You, through Christ.
I am redeemed, forgiven, and lavished in Your grace. (Eph 1)
Heal anything in me that has left space for lies to come in. Draw me by Your spirit. Conform me to my true calling - being like Your Son (Romans 8:28-29). Show me how to live that out on the earth and grant me the boldness to do so.
I receive and accept my identity in You. Thank you for loving me so.
In Jesus name, amen.
