Living A Dream

I’m living a dream this week.  It’s not THE DREAM because that’s still to be achieved, but today has been a remarkable day of seeing faith become sight.  From the earliest days of Leading Influence, the vision has always been to establish a chaplaincy ministry in every provincial capital across Canada.  While none of it has been easy, the biggest challenge has been how would we establish our work in Quebec?  The easy thing to do would have been to just ‘skip over’ Quebec, but how do you skip over Canada’s oldest province that also happens to be our 2^nd largest province.  It just didn’t seem like it was the right thing to do.

We decided to wait and pray and on a day in September God did something remarkable!  I had done an interview on a TV show in August about our National Prayer Campaign.  A pastor in Quebec was watching it online in mid-September.  She was looking for some prayer material a prayer event for their local church.  She saw the invitation to register, paused the program and signed up.

At the same time, I was in BC trying to find people from Quebec to participate in our daily prayer campaign.  I had been given a good contact to help me but we couldn’t seem to find a way to connect.  In a moment of desperation/weakness I breathed out a prayer that went something like ‘Jesus, I really need Your help now!’ and then checked the email account that got our registrations, because I needed some good news right about then!

I checked the email one minute after the Quebec pastor had registered with us.  I saw the church name and city, checked to make sure I wasn’t imagining any of it, sent a personal email asking if they would help and had a response back within minutes.

That conversation turned into ‘tell me more about what you do’ and 6 weeks later I spent the day with my new friends walking through the Quebec National Assembly.  It’s been a day of laughing, dreaming, encouraging and envisioning what could happen if this is God’s plan and heart for them.  We had fun.  We like each other.  We are eager to spend more time together and to become better friends.  Nothing is settled.  There are no announcements.  We are walking out a journey together anticipating that God will order our steps according to His plans and purposes.

Here are some lessons from the journey.

1. Stick with the vision.  We are just a few weeks away from starting our 14^th year as a ministry.  The longer I do this, the more what I saw by faith 16 years ago is becoming sight.  In the past 9 months, we’ve added 3 new staff members, launched 2 new chaplaincy locations (Edmonton and Ottawa) plus we are laying a foundation for a new Leadership Development Course for people considering giving themselves to serving in the political arena.
2. Learn to wait.  I used to think that ‘waiting’ was over-rated.  Most people I knew who were waiting on God, weren’t getting much of anything done.  I’ve come to conclude that waiting is a brilliant strategy as long as you stay focused on the big picture while you are waiting.  Waiting is as much about God getting YOU ready as it is about Him getting things ready that you are aren’t able to see.
3. Hold things loosely.  I’ve been disappointed more times than I care to think about by being too eager too soon.  My important lesson learned mostly too late is that holding things loosely is a much better approach.  It’s made me a stronger and more secure leader.  I no longer have ‘recruiting relationships.  Now I am making new friends along the way.  Some will join our team.  Others won’t and I’m happy either way!

• This is the Great Adventure!  I’m convinced that following Jesus is like riding a roller coaster.  There are times that you might be upside down or feeling several G’s in a hard turn, but there are other times when you are hands up, going down a steep hill and laughing all the way!  There are days this journey has been terrifying and stretching and there are days (like today) that have been all about the wow factor!  You don’t get one without the other!

• Keep dreaming!  Your potential isn’t in what you can do.  It’s in the impossible thing that God calls you to do!

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