I believe something very important about you: that if you clearly understood that God’s will is greater than your dreams, you would surrender every dream you ever had to chase after God’s will for your life. Even His will for your dating life. Especially His will for your dating life.
Of course one thing that makes it hard to let go of our dreams to pursue God’s will, is because His will often seems hazy, sometimes scary, while our dreams are impossible to deny and deeply cherished in our hearts.
But would you like to know God’s will?
We don’t share a 12-step program in this LoveEd episode on our FMU YouTube channel, but we do share a little secret that might help you find God’s will in the midst of your madness.
Want more about why we choose our dreams over God’s will? Keep reading below. It’s a post I wrote back in February of 2015, but updated on January 2025.
The Reality About Our Dreams
I took my middle son to Magic Kingdom last week for his birthday. And we had an absolute blast!
However, at one point, I did throw up in my mouth several times in a row.
Nope, not on Space Mountain.
No. Not in the Mad Hatter Spinning Teacup either. (And I’m pretty sure we were spinning the fastest.)
Not even on It’s a Small World. But that’s because we didn’t ride that “thrill ride.”
It wasn’t even on a thrill ride. It was during the closing fireworks display.
Nothing wrong with the fireworks themselves, but there was something nauseating about the message being conveyed by the soundtrack of Disney songs and characters throughout the show.
If I had to hear one more time that “If I just wished hard enough my dreams would come true” I was going to wish for that magical mouse to appear right in front of me. So I could punch his nose and pull off his ears.
Does it sound like someone’s a little bitter?
Not at all.
I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was thinking about the millions of students and young adults out there wishing upon a star for “that special someone.”
And wishing.
And wishing.
And wishing.
Why we Believe in just Wishing
I asked my soon-to-be-12-year-old why he thought Disney would be preaching such a silly message. (And, yes, it did feel a lot like proselytizing.)
His answer: because half the people there believe it.
Sounds about right to me, so I asked him why he thought so many people believe that just wishing things would make them happen.
I thought he had another great answer: because they simply want it to be true.
I see that a lot. People who desire for a love story that would make Belle look like the beast, make Cinderella’s slippers look like they were made from recycled plastic and make Sleeping Beauty wish she never woken.
No one says that in so many words, but you can feel this aching need to belong to someone, to find a love that heals every wound, to experience an epic romance that takes your breath away every single day of the year. (OK, maybe not that, because then you’d suffocate and die.)
Maybe I can feel it, because I still remember feeling that kind of longing myself; to slay the two-headed dragon, and win the hand of the most lovely maiden in the land.
It wasn’t just a fantastic fantasy. It was a story that I wrote, so I could make sure the ending turned out the way I wanted, so I would turn out to be the ladies-man-and-hero-in-one I always wanted to be.
Are you anything like me?
It’s human nature to want to be in control. We want to write our own story.
We want to believe we can make it happen if we wish (and/or work) long enough and hard enough. And if we need any help, we can write that into the script. Who needs God if we have magical first stars or three-wish genies? Or maybe God’s the genie, who we keep in our magic lamp until He gives us what we want.
It Could Happen to You!
But there’s a second reason why I think so many people believe this wish-upon-a-star narrative. Every single day you can read another story about someone else who did, in fact, have their dreams come true.
Walt Disney isn’t the only one. Every day another ordinary bloke like you and me makes it big, or wins the prize, or gets the girl (or guy). Apparently people have been virtually sailing through life without God since David was writing the Psalms.
And so we keep on wishing.
Some of us are even working hard to earn our way to our dreams. (Heck, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither was Disney World.)
But as another Valentines Day approaches, with possibly no prince or princess on the horizon, I want to challenge you: wishing and working and waiting isn’t what God has commanded us to do.
Certainly, dreams are part of being human; the result of being made in the image of a Creator who dreamed and then spoke into existence the entire universe. However…
For most of us, our dreams grow into idols faster than you can say bippity boppity boo.
They become all about me:
- Who I want to be
- What I want to do
- Where I want to live
- What I want to have
- What impact I want to leave
So what do you do with your dreams?
You surrender them to the God who’s got bigger and wilder dreams in his little pinky toe than we have in the collective consciousness of the eight billion dreamers alive today on this little blue ball called Spaceship Earth.
But then we ask God for something in place of those dreams. Something greater; better than our dreams. It’s a key part of His will for our lives: His call on our lives.
Date Night Advice (DNA) series: Choosing God’s Call over Your Dreams
Part 1: God’s Will is Greater than Your Dreams
Click here for the next post in the series
