Wake Up & Follow Your Dream

  The other day I was getting Frankie ready for a bath. As I was getting everything ready I asked Frankie to put some clothes away in her room, she trotted off enthusiastically on her assignment relishing the great responsibility placed upon her shoulders. After a few minutes had passed I realized two things, Firstly, Frankie had not returned from her simple expedition, and secondly it was so quiet I could have heard an ant fart. Every parent knows when it comes to children that silence and absence can potentially spell disaster. As I investigated Frankie's strange disappearance I discovered that she had come mightily close to 'mission accomplished', before becoming slightly distracted by (in her own opinion) the world's best hair ties!!!!
 Have you ever had a goal or dream before becoming distracted? Perhaps you wanted to pursue a career path but something came up. Have you dreamt of being free of debt for a long time with no evidence of things improving? Are you always wishing that you did more for other people but never seem to find the time? My dream is to help people see and find God by living a life that attracts people to God rather than repel them. Be it through generosity of time or money, or befriending the unfriendly or some other crazy idea I haven't come up with yet. Do you have a dream? How big is it? Do you believe you will ever reach it?




Why Do we need a dream?
Dreams are beautiful! A dream is a possibility, and a possibility is a hint from God that we must try to pursue. Not having a dream is like being a jellyfish, floating around aimlessly and going 'where the tide takes us', it may sound cool but in the end it just ends up washed up on a beach being poked with a stick by a four year old boy. The great thing about a dream is the journey, achieving a dream is about more than what you accomplish, it's about who you become in the process. If you don't know what your dream is try this; think about what you are good at and what you are passionate about, then write down a dream so big that it makes you hungry to go for it. Hunger is important when you are going for something, hunger is like fuel in the tank of a car, the less hunger, the more likelihood of a breakdown on the way to the destination. A dream is a combination of what you are passionate about and what you are talented at. Combine love and skill and you're going to get a masterpiece!

What do we do when the dream seems far away?

Keep going! If you know that you are running after the right dream don't stop. Sometimes when we are on a journey it is easy to become exhausted, sometimes it's even easier to turn around and go back to the start. Starting something is easy, finishing requires a lot more work. When we are feeling discouraged or weary when going for a dream, we need to find something inside of us that picks us back up and moves us forward again.You may succeed if someone else believes in you, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself. 

 The following story teaches us the importance of moving no matter how slow a dream may be in arriving.

 'In winter a snail started climbing an apple tree. On his way up, a worm poked his head out of the tree stump and said,' you're wasting your time going up there mate, there's nothing to eat up there.' The snail replied,' I know there's nothing there now, but by the time I get there, there will be!' The best thing to do when the dream is taking its time to arrive is keep focused on it. The saying 'keep your eyes on the prize' is used a lot by athletes because it motivates them through the mundane days of training when victory still seems so far off. So before we give up on a dream it is worth remembering that quitting says more about who we are than where we are in the pursuit of our dream.

How Do I get closer to a dream?
If you are anything like me you may find sometimes the scale of a task is so huge, that it becomes intimidating even just trying to figure out where to begin. I learnt a great lesson on the first day of my electrical apprenticeship which serves to this day as a great key to obtaining a dream. As I walked through the factory past huge pieces of electrical equipment, I became overwhelmed by the hundreds of wires hanging out of pieces of equipment that people were constructing. I thought to myself, 'how do they know where to start wiring one of these things?' A tradesman who picked up on the 'I'm way out of my depth' look on my face advised me to, 'pick an area and focus on it until you have finished it, then move on to the next part.' I believe that the greatest enemy to starting to go for a dream can be not knowing where to start. This is usually created when we look at the big picture rather than the steps it takes to actually get there. Another of my dreams is to write books, when I did research into the process of publishing a book, I became overwhelmed by how unqualified and inexperienced I was in comparison to the internet community. Rather than let it put me off following that dream I decided to start developing that area of my passion by starting this blog. Don't let discouragement stop you from doing something. The timing for our dreams are never perfect, so we might as well start now. If we don't, then next year we will be a year older and not a step closer. All dreams are out of our comfort zone, Leaving that zone is the price we must pay to achieve them.

Taking the first step
I once heard a preacher talk about momentum. He spoke about how a freight train may be slow in gaining speed, but once it starts to gain more and more momentum it becomes very difficult to stop it. Don't visualize yourself pulling out of the station, picture yourself zooming down that track at full speed on the way to the destination. Change is not created by what happened yesterday or what 'might' happen tomorrow, it is created now by how you walk away from this blog-floating like a jellyfish or racing down the track like a freight train.

I really recommend a book on the subject of dreams that inspired me for this blog called 'Put your dream to the test' by John C Maxwell. Check it out or let me know if you have read it!

Daddy

Frankie Dorothy Nott

 As a father there is nothing that resonates in me more than my love for my beautiful daughter Frankie. One of the most rewarding feelings I experience as a Dad is when Frankie returns the love that I so desperately desire from her. Just a simple kiss, or hug or if she just says my name brings me more happiness and life than anything else on this earth. You really can't un-love your child because they are part of you, they are part of your DNA, they're your flesh and blood and to not love them is to not love you.

 Recently Frankie started to develop her own 'free will.' What this means for me as a Dad is that Frankie has the choice to show me how much she loves me ........or not. A few weeks ago I was coming home from work so excited to see my girls. When I saw Frankie I squatted down to her height and opened my arms waiting for her to run into my arms and give me a kiss with those beautiful, tiny, soft lips. Instead she preceded to slap me in the face and say 'no, no, no.' To say I felt rejected is an understatement. Luckily this doesn't happen all the time and just the other day I received a much better 'welcome home daddy' reception. 

 Lot's of people view God as a distant father. The kind of dad that never says 'I love you.' The kind of dad that never has time to hang out with his children. The kind of dad that is angry and inconvenienced by simple requests like 'help' and 'can you come play with me?' 
 Have you ever seen one of those movies where a rebellious teenager says how much they hate their dad? Then you meet the on-screen dad and he's actually a really awesome guy trying to do the best to win his daughter or son's affection. That's us! Ungrateful, un-accepting and unaware of how desperate God our father is to show his love to us. Much like the loveable on-screen dad, the bible paints a picture of a dad way different to what most of us may be used to hearing about; 

'Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father." 

There's two beautiful thoughts for us to take out of this verse;

1) God has adopted us. Adoption is a process of being chosen. To be adopted is to be accepted, even if your previous family history records only rejection. Nobody accidentally adopts someone, it's an intentional process. The fact that the word 'adopt' turns up in the same sentence as God and You should give you some scale to how unique and special you really are. The creator of the heavens and earth chooses you! God has invited us to be his sons and daughters and if we accept we become 100% part of his ever growing family, no strings attached.

2) God is our daddy. The word 'abba' is from the aramaic language and can be translated to mean 'papa' or 'daddy', it literally represents a child like love for their dad that anyone can relate to. It's a term a child uses when they adore their daddy. It's a term that a child uses because their daddy is a place of love and acceptance.It's a term a child uses because they know their daddy is a place of safety.

 Take some time to think about this; you matter very much to God and he chooses you all the time, every time because he loves you as a daddy loves their child. So the next time God kneels down and opens up his arms waiting for you to run into his embrace, you have a choice. You can either slap him repeatedly in the face and say 'no, no, no.' Or you can start a journey of knowing a perfect Dad who will always look out for you, cheer you on and smile every time he thinks of you.

Frankie and the most proud 'daddy' in the world

  

Being A Christian, Not A Salesman

Have you ever one day been walking down the road and suddenly you see one of those charity fundraisers? Despite their warm approach you see this as an opportunity to be the most anti social person you could ever be. You might avoid eye contact or even cross the road, doing everything humanly possible to avoid the sales speech. You know it’s a good cause. It will change someone else’s life, it might even change yours! Or perhaps you have had an unexpected knock at your front door; you wonder ‘who could this wonderful person be!?’ As soon as you open the door your heart sinks as you are greeted with a clip board and ID tag

around the neck of a hopeful, unfamiliar but friendly face.

In this day and age, people are not after a salesman. This is why we are so unconvinced by politicians when they kiss babies or make a ‘promise’. We see straight through the latest celebrity visit to an orphanage in Africa knowing ’they’re just doing that for publicity.’  We don’t like things being sold to us, we want to choose to do something, not be persuaded. My reasoning is that if I want something I’ll go looking for it myself thank you very much! I don’t need a salesperson to try and sell me a new internet provider, if I’m unhappy I will look and find one myself. I don’t know how effective sales people are in their attempts to gain new customers, but one strategy I do find to be effective forms of sales are adverts. 

Adverts work because:

1.  They set out to be attractive.
2. They don’t over complicate the details. They tell you what the product is, where you can get it and why you need it.
3. They aren't overly intrusive, if you don’t like an advert on TV you mute the sound or change the channel. If you’re not interested in the catalogue, you throw it in the bin. However if you are interested, you’ll keep that catalogue or rewind the TV just to re-watch the advert and get all the details of how to obtain that product.

 Our goal as the church is to go and make disciples, to do this we must eventually present Jesus to people, so how do we do this without becoming plastic and artificial?

 I once read on another blog something very thought provoking that asked this question, ‘How many things are Christians known for that they shouldn't be known for ?’ A very good question because when I put myself in the shoes of my work mates I realized that they through their own experiences with the church/Christians and a combination of media stories, some that are utter rubbish and sadly some that are true, obtained a very poor picture of who Jesus really is. Play the word association game with a church hater and they’ll probably use words like ‘judgemental’ and ‘hypocritical’. As sad as this all is, God has not called you to fix everyone’s hurts, or correct other people’s mistakes. What he has called you to do is represent him how he should be represented.

 To ‘sell’ Jesus to people does not require a clipboard and ID tag, it doesn't require you to go door to door with a script trying to sell to an unsuspecting victim. All it requires is being on display in a way that shows that God is amazing, he’s done great things in your life and he wants to do great things in other people’s lives too.

Jesus said it like this, ‘You’re here to be a light, bringing out the God colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you don’t think I'm going to hide you under a bucket do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you on a hilltop, on a light stand - shine! Keep an open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God.’

(Matthew 5:14-16,The Message translation)

I like how Jesus relates a faith that gives light to the our surroundings. Imagine your faith as a light bulb and then with an honest heart, assess how brightly that light bulb shines during the week. I'm not just talking Sunday at church, not even just Monday to Friday 9 to 5. I mean all the time. Can I encourage you that increasing the brightness of your light is actually very simple. It’s about being open. It’s about being real. It’s about taking an interest in someone’s life. It is really as simple and beautiful as asking someone at work how their weekend was, learning the name of their spouse and kids and taking a genuine interest in their life. When you next go to pay for groceries I challenge you to look up and smile at the shop assistant whilst asking ‘how’s your day been?’ It may not add much to your day, but trust me it’ll add heaps to theirs. Small acts of love built up over a period of time have a way of transforming a person’s perception of the so called Christian you claim to be. I used to believe for a long time that if I could just say the right words, if I could just win the lunch room debates, that people would finally accept my invitation to church. I now know that God would like to see us all live by this famous quote, ‘Preach all the time, if necessary use words.’

Dan