What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
2 Timothy 1:6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.
When you were a child, and some grown-up, an aunty or an uncle or a friend of your parents, asked you – What do you want to be when you grow up? – what was your answer?
As a boy, I guess I had the typical fireman, train driver kind of answers that I trotted out. No doubt, you had your standard answers as well.
That was when I was really young. But when I became a teenager, around sixteen or seventeen, another dream entered my heart. I dreamed that I wanted to be a minister. When you’re young you don’t think so much about the realities of making money, providing for a family, buying a house and paying off a mortgage. It’s about what feels good. I’d had a brief flirt with God – I think that’s the best way to describe it – and so, yeah, minister at that point sounded pretty appealing.
Fortunately though, I grew out of that dream. I grew up and set about building a career, a life, success … all the sorts of things that we set about building. I mean, how many of us follow those early dreams into reality anyhow? Very few – if you did, good on you, but you’d be something of a statistical aberration.
So, one day in my mid thirties, I wake up and realise that this just wasn’t the life I was meant to be living. Don’t get me wrong. I was making money, I’d carved a career out for myself. I was doing pretty well on the outside. But inside, I was so empty – I was lost. Does that make sense?
The Apostle Paul writes this to his young protégé Timothy:
For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands. (2 Timothy 1:6)
One day, God brought me to my knees and reminded me of that dream. The dream to become a minister. And I read that passage about rekindling the gift that God had put within me. So I stepped out and followed that dream. Man oh man it’s been hard some days. But I wouldn’t swap it.
What about you? What’s the dream that God has woven into your DNA, into your destiny? What’s the desire of your heart? What are you really good at? What do you really, really enjoy doing?
We’re all different. My dream isn’t your dream, nor is yours mine. But God has a gift that He has placed within you. Something that you can do better than just about anyone you know. And it’s invariably the use of that amazing, God–given gift that our dreams revolve around.
What’s your dream? Because if you’re not living it, God wants to rekindle that gift that is within you.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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