Persevere in following your dreams

“ ... His word is in my heart like a fire shut up in my bones.”

— Jeremiah 20:9 (NIV)

I recall the day vividly. I had just finished reading Jeremiah, Chapter 20, Verse 9. I had talents, dreams, and goals to fulfill. A realization of the prophet’s words, “ … like a fire shut up in my bones” became understandable to me.

When a dream is alive inside of you it’s like a burning desire. However, that is only the beginning.

The desire fuels the fire for the rest of the process, because dreams take many painstaking hours of study, skill, prayer and perseverance.

My husband, Jeff, is an artist. His skill has taken many years to cultivate and brought with it many twists and turns of new projects and direction; but years later, that fire still burns passionately within him.

Many people never take steps to fulfill their dreams. It either requires too much work, or they are afraid of failure and lack faith.

I have a friend who is a very successful Christian writer. She said for many years she stuffed her dream and never dared to dream it could come to pass.

Her motto was, “If I never dream, I’ll never be disappointed.” But if we never dream, we’ll never have a life of faith and adventure. We’ll not pursue God’s will for our lives. Then one day, while watching a crusade for Christ on T.V. — God caught her attention. She no longer quenched her dream. Instead, she started taking steps to see it through to success.

Many things can keep us from living out our dreams. Lack of self-esteem is a major one.

Jeremiah had the same problem. He was called to speak prophesy to the people, however, each time he got an opportunity to speak he got stage fright.

God’s instructions to him were: “Do not be dismayed and break down at the sight of their faces.” (Jeremiah 1:9 AMP).

We all have a special purpose here on earth that was preordained by God. He has placed inside each of us a desire to use our gifts and abilities to serve each other in some way. This is where our dreams originate. It is our destiny. We can’t allow rejections and disappointments to make us give up on our dreams.

We need to set our minds on them and keep the fires burning. Regardless of our age or ability, it’s never too late to make our dreams come true.

Ÿ Annettee Budzban is a Christian author, speaker, life coach and nurse. She can be contacted at Annetteebudzban@aol.com.