What do you do when your insides are burning so bright with desires and dreams, but your current situation displays the exact opposite? What do you do when your outside world cannot keep up with the desires of your heart? Where do you run to with all your dreams and plans when they do not fit into anything happening around you in the real world?
7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 NLT
Paul is saying here that there are lights shining so bright, a great treasure on the inside of us, but we are too fragile to handle it independently. We need the Lord who gives us the capacity to sustain this treasure, which He has given to us. Usually, when God gives you a dream or vision, there’s a set time for its manifestation. An appointed time when and where God has prepared the right environment to receive it, and He has equipped you to handle the pressure that comes with your dream. God showed Joseph dreams that were too magnificent and amazing for him to keep to himself, and he just wanted to share them with his family. But this is exactly what got him in trouble with his brothers! If you are familiar with this Bible story, you will know what happened to him; his environment was not ready to accept his dreams, and so his brothers tried to sabotage his destiny. We may experience opposition from all spheres of life because of what we carry, but the good news is that any opposition will not destroy us.
The Spirit of Might provides the tenacity to stand against the wiles of this world so that what lies on our insides are not crushed by our outsides. God’s Spirit gives us the ability to live inside out and keep our light alive so we can handle the treasure it’s carrying. God’s guidance will give you the grace to bear the pressure that comes with your dreams. You can boldly say to your adversary, “bring it on, I’ve got heaven on my side”.
You may be tempted to hold back and let your environment define what you bring out of yourself, but God is challenging you to do the reverse. He has deposited everything in you for a reason, and by bottling it up for your comfort and the comfort of others, you deny your world of the blessings you were created to offer them. There’s a platform designed to receive what you have to offer. Don’t be deterred by your current situation but allow the Spirit of God to expand your eye lens so you can begin to see all that God wants to do with you.
Look into your heart and ask yourself these questions. What are your burning desires? What are the dreams that keep you awake when the rest of the world is sleeping? What are the thoughts and plans that keep bugging you, and you have decided to shut them down because you can’t see their manifestation? I believe it’s time to revisit those ideas and dreams now! It’s never too late to bring them alive.
If Joseph had held back after his brothers sold him into slavery, he wouldn’t have played a prominent role in their deliverance from famine. When it’s a God-given dream and desire, the power to stop it or let it out rest with you. The devil will use all his tactical devises to bring you down, but you can be like Joseph and hold on to your dreams until it starts manifesting. Something brand new is bursting to come out of you, and you may be branded weird or abnormal, but do not be dissuaded by your critics. The same brothers who criticised Joseph were blessing him when the season was right. So many times, I’ve felt out of my depth in different situations, but what has kept me going is the memory and reminder of God’s word concerning me. For that reason, I have been determined to stay the course despite oppositions and obstacles, and I keep fighting every distraction with a mind to see God’s plan come alive in my life.
God wants to birth something into the world through you and what you are carrying is the miracle somebody is waiting on. As you may already have realised, like a foetus, your dreams are just going to get louder and bigger, bursting to come forth. At the moment of delivery, a woman in labour has to decide to push her baby out to enjoy the full benefits of her nine months of pregnancy. Likewise, we are also carrying treasures that need to be pushed out, and God is calling you and saying, “it’s time to let all He has given you come out“. You do not want your treasures to lie dormant, but you want them to come alive so that they can be a blessing to your audience. With the power of the Holy Spirit, you will bring forth your treasure from inside of you. Your dreams will not be aborted but will come to full manifestation by the power of God.
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9 NLT
Through the spirit of might, God’s power is available to bring out the light from your inside. Don’t let your environment turn off the light from your inside. Make a decision, set yourself loose and embrace your dreams. Talk to God about it; I bet He’s been waiting to have that chat with you for a while now.
May you be filled with the Fullness of God and the Power of His Love!
