“Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 AMP
New beginnings can be hard, but they are further complicated if you are still catching your breath from the previous year’s broken dreams. How do you embrace new beginnings when you’re still grieving the previous season of losses?
Many I talk to are experiencing some really tough things with costly losses attached to them. Most of those are permanent losses. Time can’t be turned back. If you’ve lost something and are struggling to accept an irreversible loss, you have an idea of its weight and impact and how impossible it seems to move on from it.
I had been wrestling with this issue before God, wanting relief so badly. That is when He reminded me of this scripture about asking. I felt His kindness pointing me toward an option I had not seen before. When things and experiences are robbed from you with no say on your part, it seems impossible to recognize options. But I sensed God stirring my heart to realize that instead of holding on to these dead or stolen dreams, I had the option of planting them like a seed that falls into the ground. It made so much sense – the dreams were dead regardless of whether I held on to them or released them to the ground.
I began naming each loss, an imaginary seed representing it, and pictured putting each one into the ground on my internal movie screen, asking God to produce a hundred-fold harvest for everything that had died.
Something powerful happened as I did that. I started wondering about what that harvest would look like. Without even recognizing it at first, I was feeling the momentum and found myself dreaming about all the things I would want to ask to be part of that hundred-fold multiplication.
New year goals are not a command, but Jesus commands us to ask. In response to that, I am starting this year out with more confident boldness in His promises.
Instead of resolutions I don’t have the energy for due to the grief, I am creating a dream or wish list for God, covering every conceivable part of my life. A hundred dreams or wishes for each loss, if I can! I just allow my heart to dream. Since I am commanded by God to keep on asking, and it’s not just three wishes, then I want to get better at asking. I invite you to join me and ask God to awaken new dreams in you.
Let’s pray: My wonderful God Who can do abundantly more than we can imagine, thank You for Your power that creates more than we can ever dream up! Please bless us to dream with You and according to Your will and power. Amen.
Ready To Flourish
I was privileged to be a part of this Devotional from my friend Carina Alanson. Grab your FREE copy here!
