Dare to dream

First Love – Inspiring others to fall in love with Jesus

Dare to dream

“I will pour out my spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions” Joel 2v28

Do you have a dream in your heart? Perhaps it’s a vision that God has placed there? A wonderful woman of God once taught me that God’s visions are like a pregnancy. There is a gestation period – a period of time where your vision is conceived, developed and prepared. Then when the time is right the vision is birthed. The Reverend William D Whately puts it this way “a vision is a mental picture God gives that grips the heart”. Have you ever experienced this passion rise up inside of you?

I have, it was 11 years ago now. I remember it well I was expecting my second child and I had been reading a book called The Power of a Praying Woman. This book changed my life as the end of each chapter contained prayers you could offer up to God. As I said the prayers aloud, I knew that God was changing my heart and healing me from the inside. It was during one of my quiet times with God that he gave me a picture of women sitting around the word of God. I saw women in my heart, just like me, who were seeking God, desperate for Jesus and for healing. Women like me who wanted to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from his teachings.

At the time I didn’t understand it as I wasn’t part of any group but my heart burned with a passion to see this happen. This brought to mind Nehemiah, who God instilled in his heart a desire to see the city walls rebuilt, a vision that broke Nehemiah’s heart to the point that he wept over it. What about you, has God given you a burden, a need that weighs heavily on your heart? Maybe it’s for the lost, the lonely, the addict, a city or maybe even a nation. God will choose someone like you, whose heart is burdened and concerned for his people.

My heart was filled with this passion, I had a desire to see women set free to be the women that God created them to be. Not because I had all the answers, but because I knew the one who had saved me. The one who healed me and set me free had given me a desire to share that with others. That vision was birthed and is today known as Woman2Woman, a wonderful ministry where women from different walks of life, ages and churches come together to sit around the word of God and listen to Jesus’s teachings. This week Woman2Woman celebrate ten years since I began leading my first bible study. In those ten years we have studied many scriptures, prayed many prayers, thanked him for countless answered prayers, witnessed women come to know Jesus and supported each other through many tearful times. I know I can speak for all the women who make this ministry so very special that this ministry truly is God’s gift.

For me personally there have been many challenges along the way, just as there was for Nehemiah. However I look at men like Nehemiah and take comfort from their determination and persistence to keep on going even in the face of adversity. So do you have a dream? A vision that God has placed on your heart? Maybe you are at the conception stage where God has given you a glimpse of something yet to come. Can I encourage you to press into him, pray for his leadership and for patience? Then watch as he powerfully and beautifully brings that vision to birth.

I’d like to take this opportunity now to say how incredibly privileged and blessed I am to have been given this vision from God, for the amazing women I serve and for the wonderful women that have passed through this ministry over the last ten years. Dreams certainly do come true.

Keep on dreaming Gods dreams

Until next time

Debbie