DREAMS CAPTURING OUR HEART

“[W]e would like to go to heaven upon a bed of roses, and so we pay more attention to one cross than to a hundred blessings. So unkindly do we deal toward God. Is God indebted to us? Does He owe us anything? Those that deserve nothing should be content with anything” Richard Sibbes (ref#225, Feb 28^th).

“Because he is zealous to rescue you from you, God’s care can be violent. He rips you from what is dangerous to give you what is better” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Oct 1^st).

“The clinging desperation and trembling uncertainty feels bumpy to us but it’s smooth to God” Bob Sorge (ref#197, p22).

“We all chase a vision of what we would like life to be. We all fantasize and imagine. [C]ombine it with the selfishness of sin, and it will surely get you and me into trouble. Here’s what happens: it’s not just that you have a dream, but that your heart gets captured by your dream. It becomes your definition of ‘life.’ You no longer hold your dream with open hands. What was once a desire has morphed into a demand, and it won’t be long before you view that demand as a need. This thing that you once wished that you had becomes your nonnegotiable, the thing that you are unwilling to live without. Soon you’re unhappy, not because life has been hard or God has been unfaithful, but because this thing that is effectively and functionally ruling your heart lies beyond your grasp. You are despondent and discouraged. You envy people who seem to have captured their dreams. You wonder why you’ve been singled out. You wonder why God has forgotten you. Dream? Yes, but when your dream becomes a ruling thing, it wreaks havoc on your spiritual life” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Sept 11^th).

“If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction” (Ps 119:92 ESV).

“[I]f you [when undergoing these trials] [are] deficient in wisdom, keep on presenting [your] request in the presence of the giving God” (James 1:5 Wuest).