The following is an excerpt from Josh Branham’s book What Are You Waiting For?: A Young Leader’s Guide to Changing the World, from his chapter on Possibility.
I don’t know when it happened, but I’m guessing that along the way you traded possible for practical. Maybe you realized your dream job didn’t pay very well, so you settled for something safe with a salary. Or maybe you got into your desired line of work, but it wasn’t all you hoped it would be. People can be mean, and failure happens to all of us. The world has a way of chewing up bright-eyed kids and spitting out boring adults. Along the way, we become pessimists instead of dreamers. How do you relearn youthful possibility? Here are three thoughts.
1. Take time to dream.
Kids are dreamers. My wife and I have creative kids. Let me tell you, they come up with some crazy ideas! One moment my daughter is pretending she’s a princess, and the next, she’s a dragon. Children don’t have to try to use their imagination. It’s their default operating mode. However, as we grow older, we become more concerned with the way things currently are than how they could be.
Bob Goff explains it like this, “Our dreams are birthed in childlike innocence, but as we grow up, we discover more information that can be a buzzkill to our ambitions.”[1] We have too much information and not enough dreams. If we want to rediscover a sense of possibility, we have to schedule times to dream. If you work on a team, you can do this by having an actual brainstorming session. I say “actual brainstorming session” because we’ve probably all been in meetings where they say, “no idea is a bad idea.”
Then moments later, everyone is laughing you out of the room or shooting down your thoughts with a machine gun of “what-abouts.” What about this? What about that? Brainstorming is only valuable when everyone can share their ideas uninhibited. The ideas that come up in a meeting like this may not end up being the finished product. But you’ll be a whole lot closer to the finish line than if you simply talked about all the ways that your project could fail.
“Brainstorming is only valuable when everyone can share their ideas uninhibited.”
We also need to take time to dream by ourselves and with our families. Every January, my wife and I go on a special date to discuss our dreams for the new year. I’ve found this to be much more helpful than the typical New Year resolutions. We share our goals and how we can support one another on our journey.
Dreaming on my own looks a lot more like quiet time. You can’t dream about the future when your mind is preoccupied with the noise of the present. Set down your phone and pick up a journal. Ask yourself the question, “If I could be doing anything five years from now, what would it be?” That’s the question that initially got me thinking about finding a more permanent church home.
I knew it wasn’t realistic for our church to own a building in five years, but I entertained the idea anyway. I thought about the location, size, and specifications. Long before I prayed the crazy prayer for God to give us a building, the ideal facility already existed in my mind. Instead of waiting five or ten years to purchase land and build a building, God gave us a home in a little over one year.
“You can’t dream about the future when your mind is preoccupied with the noise of the present.”
2. Pray big.
Prayer is the fuel that feeds the fire of possibility. When we think only of our power and resources, our dreams fall flat. But when we speak to the omnipotent God of the universe, our imaginations begin to run wild. It’s like the moment where Jesus asks the blind beggar Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51). Bartimaeus could have said anything. “Do you have five bucks? How about you buy lunch?” Instead, he asked Jesus to do the impossible. “Make me see.” Jesus did it. We need to spend time praying that God would do the impossible.
Mark Batterson challenges us to pray bigger and bolder prayers: “Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn’t offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible to you, they are insulting to God.”[2]
Small prayers get trivial answers. Impossible prayers get miracles. I don’t know about you, but I want to see miracles in my life. I don’t just pray for an average marriage. I pray that God would give me the best marriage on the planet. I don’t just pray that my kids would be “nice” and get good grades. I pray that they would change the world in more fantastic ways than I do. I don’t just pray for church growth. I pray for renewal and revival in our time. Every time you see God do something unique, you will grow in the belief that nothing will be impossible for God.
Prayer is the fuel that feeds the fire of possibility.
3. Remember that tomorrow is a new day.
The reason we become cynical as we get older isn’t simply due to age. It’s because older people carry around more pain. More time in this broken world usually translates to more brokenness in our lives. We have all experienced hurt, failure, and loss. You probably didn’t choose the negative baggage that you picked up along the way. What few people realize is that you can select what baggage you bring with you each day.
You might have a hard time with people because of a person who hurt you. Maybe a close friend betrayed your trust, or a boss made your life miserable for years. Maybe you have a father wound. The pain of these situations is valid. If the damage is severe, seeing a counselor would be wise. Just because that person took something from you in the past doesn’t mean you have to let them rob you of your future.
The only way I know how to break free is to forgive. Forgiveness doesn’t mean minimizing the pain or pretending it didn’t happen. It also doesn’t mean forgetting. Forgiveness means choosing to cancel the debt. You acknowledge what the other person owes you. Then you simply decide not to make them pay up. If you’ve experienced grace from God, you can now extend that grace to someone else. If you’re a Christian, you can also rest easy knowing that you are not the ultimate judge. You can let someone off your hook because you know they are on God’s. Sometimes forgiveness leads to the reconciliation of the relationship, and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, forgiveness is the key to opening the prison door. Only after we open that door do we realize that we were the ones trapped the whole time.
“Only after we open that door do we realize that we were the ones trapped the whole time.”
Remember that God’s mercies are new every morning. If you have a hard heart, let God soften it day by day. Set your alarm clock early so that you can see the sunrise each morning. As you sip your coffee and look at the sun, remember that today is brimming with possibility. There is no problem too big for God to solve. There is no pain too deep for God to heal. I challenge you to do this for a month and watch how your perspective changes.
[1] Bob Goff, Dream Big: Know What You Want, Why You Want It, and What You’re Going to Do About It (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2020), 31.
[2] Mark Batterson, The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 15.
Excerpted from Josh Branham, What Are You Waiting For? A Young Leader’s Guide to Changing the World.
