The invitation comes gently at first, watching a housemate dream big dreams. My own start to push their way to the surface.

It has been a while since I’ve had the courage to dream.

Another conversation and the daring to speak the first of the impossibly big dreams, and I realize that ignoring them now is painful in its pulling away from God and His call to dream with Him.

God has the words waiting when I arrive home, an echo that insists I not miss His meaning: “God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow into them.”

Blossoms burst from  ancient trunks, stalks of new life reaching for the sun.

 Gold blooms behind peeling fence and limits can be a frame that magnifies glory. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Petals cup, faces uplifted in the joy of being what they are made to be.

 And this, this is why we really need to dream: God dreamed first.

“God had a dream and wrapped your body around it.” (Lou Engle)

We, together, are God’s poeima, his finest work of art, each of us irreplaceable and perfectly suited to the dreams God has knit into us. (Eph 2:10)

And those dreams beginning to push their way to the surface “are the seeds of possibility planted in your soul, calling you to pursue a unique path to the realization of your purpose.” (John Maxwell, “Put Your Dreams to the Test”) Our dreams, prayerfully received as gifts from God, are the whisper of God’s own dreams knit into us, and our answering actions the way we love God and others.

 So join with me, will you? Let’s dare to dream the dreams that God is stirring in us.

 Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.  If your life honors the name of Jesus, he will honor you. Grace is behind and through all of this, our God giving himself freely, the Master, Jesus Christ, giving himself freely. (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, The Message)