Is it okay for your dreams to change? Is it?
I’ve been vying for one thing these past three years, New York City. I thought that this city was my calling, that nothing could shake my resolve this is where I am going. Now I wonder if this is just a shaking or a changing.
If the city of New York is my call in life, where God wants me to go then this is just a shaking.
This week I shared in chapel about dreaming with God, don’t be afraid to dream with Him, and in the meantime, when those promises are waiting to be given you abide in Him, you walk out life with Him and trust Him. Later that day I sat talking with a new mentor in my life and we talked about me and where I was headed.
Lately it’s seemed unclear of when I will go to New York, so I explained my confusion to him. He stated simply,
Greg, I believe that if God called you to New York, you would be there now.
He went on to say that he believes I am mixing some details up, that there is a call to a place, but more specifically a call to a people. The people who are scorned for their creativity and abstract way of looking at life, to those that the church has tried to form into the “perfect Christian” rather than drawing out the image of God (imago deo) that He has imprinted on them. This rang so true, I do feel called to these people.
He said something pretty profound but also rattling,
Don’t limit yourself to New York City, limit yourself to a people.
New York is pretty big and this demographic makes up a large portion of it. Bigger than New York. He began talking about the people locally who experienced this, those artists who have been told by the church that they need to conform to a certain image. He spoke of his personal calling to those people here in my area. He wants to create a place for people like that to flourish.
I sat, stunned at all I was hearing. I was still stuck on New York. Somewhere in my heart it felt right, but that scared me. What if not New York?
I began to tell him of an ideal for my own life. I said, if I could have the perfect life it would be to own a theatre that had a running coffee shop in the lobby.
you just described the church I want to plant.
He said.
Divine appointments are those brief moments when you know something had to have been set up.
Suddenly New York started to fade. I love the city, and I would love to live there, but suddenly it didn’t seem so important to be there right now. And I am beginning to wonder if I even want to live there (this will most likely change in a day or so).
I’ve been pouring over this for the past three days and it’s just truly beginning to sink in and it’s scary. Part of me worries, rather wants to worry, about me forgetting about the calling God has on my life. But the bigger worry, “What will people think?” For years I have been telling people non stop about my dream for New York City, to reach the theatre community there, and now it seems I’m not rushing off to do that.
I need to not care so much of what people think.
All my life people have told me that God likes to take the scenic route, He doesn’t take you straight there. Maybe I’m beginning to turn right a little and I’m not walking directly towards my city. Maybe the dream of the city was only to get me to go down a certain road, either way I know God is directing my steps. Even if that one summer two years ago is all I ever will live in the city I know I am blessed for it.
I’m anxious to see where God takes me next. And in that time I will walk it with Him and strive to serve him with my life in whatever way I am able.