Love: why it shatters dreams

Everyone has experienced the pain of a crumbling dream:

·       The job went to someone else

·       The relationship didn’t work out

·       The money didn’t come in for that college

Are we to conclude that God doesn’t love us because he doesn’t give us what we wanted? 

Is he sitting in heaven grinning as he squashes another idea with his giant thumb just because we liked it? 

Or could it be that Love always gives us exactly what we would have wanted if we had known the whole picture?

Learning to trust

After I started waking to Life, God sent me through two more years of Bible school where I gradually learned more about trust.

In my second year, I learned that God wasn’t distant. I didn’t have to kneel by my bed in order to talk to him. I could seek him at any time, anywhere, in the sanctuary of my heart. I could walk with God, if I wanted.

As I learned to do this, God started showing me things about myself—ugly things. I had no idea I could be so proud and angry! But at the same time, He also started showing me things about himself—beautiful things.

And I learned that no matter what we've done, God’s heart cares for us anyway and He has the power to heal the sickest heart.

As I faced tasks and weaknesses that were too big for me to handle, I learned to lean on my Beloved. And each time, I learned that He never lets us down.

But one day, all that changed.

The dream

I hadn’t originally wanted to go to Hillsdale College. Frankly, I just don’t have a passion for the American Constitution like all the students and faculty seemed to have. But I visited the campus and felt at home, and as I fell in love with the idea of going there, I was pretty sure that God gave me that dream.

Still, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I told God that I only wanted to get accepted at that college if that was where He wanted me. At that time, the acceptance rate was only in the ~65% range, so I thought it was a safe condition to make with God.

I was accepted.

That was it. Here I was, going off to my dream school! One of my best friends was going there too, and of course we would room together. I didn’t have the money to go, but I had been taught that God always provides for His plans. Always. So of course He would provide the thousands of dollars I lacked.

Right?

Well, if you want to hear more of the story, you can read about it in one of these accounts:

Read "Missive or Missile?"

Read "Doors."

My prayers went crashing

 I wrote about that event a couple of times, first four months after the event and then thirteen months after. My perspective on the whole thing gets a little broader and less tragic each time, but I really don’t need to repeat the whole story. For a moment, I felt like God let me and all of my prayers go crashing to the floor.

But I chose to trust Him anyway.

And I learned one very valuable thing.

What I learned

Love shatters our dreams because its dreams for us are way better than anything we could have imagined.

When we follow the Giver of Love, everything that happens to us—good or bad—is meant to draw us closer to the Giver’s heart.

If I had gone to college in Michigan, I would have again filled my life with activities that would have drowned out the Giver’s voice.

If I had gone to college in Michigan, I would have stayed close to the one friend I felt truly safe around instead of getting thrown in with some new and more dangerous ones.

If I had gone to college in Michigan, I might never have realized that what I do doesn’t matter as much as who I am.

God allured me in my wilderness

Only when God hedged up my way and left me nowhere to go did I stop, panting, to listen to Him again. And there, He allured me in my wilderness (Hosea 2:14). He spoke of Love, of Life, and of Adventure, and He told me exactly what He thought of me.

It wasn’t what I had expected to hear. I guess I’d always thought that God loves us with His nose plugged. . . He will love us because He is love, but He will never forget how wretched we are. But God sees each one of us not just as we are, but as who we are in Him.

And what He sees is flawless. (Song of Solomon 4:7)

So why does Love shatter dreams? Love shatters dreams to get our attention, and it only does so when there is greater game afoot. The Giver of Love will not let us settle for a shanty when He has a palace in mind.

And I know this because I have been watching palaces go up in my life ever since.