Dreams and Visions

Late summer 1977, a girl about to enter her senior year of high school, sits in her room singing and praying this song over and over,

Lord, let me have a dream without being a dreamer

And Lord, let me have a vision without being consumed of it

And let me work with diligence always knowing that You’re the start and end of it

Oh Lord, let everything, everything I do remind me of my love for You.

 

Lord, teach me how to love for so many are in need of it

Oh Lord, teach me how to give for it’s in giving that we learn how to live

Let me work with diligence always knowing that You’re the start and end of it

And oh, Lord, let everything, everything I do remind me of my love for You.

Let everything-everything-everything that I do

Remind me of my love for you.

 

Here is what that girl didn’t know then

  • She will struggle her whole life to avoid workaholism in favor of whole-hearted devotion, which is pleasing to the Lord, just like Hezekiah.
  • She will battle, having been raised with a strong work ethic and disdain for laziness,  a propensity for overwork and have to be reminded that rest is a built-in (work 6, rest 1) and an invitation from Jesus Himself, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good—not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.”  Matthew 11.28-30
  • She will throw herself into things (good things and causes and righting injustices and getting the job done when no one else will and even “work for the Lord”) with zeal and passion and intense diligence (body-soul-and-spirit) and will need to be reminded that the Lord is the start and the end of the things He calls her to.  It doesn’t depend on her.  It is His.
  • She will have to re-learn, time and again, that the vision, though energizing and life-giving, is not meant to consume the whole of her.
  • And again and again she will repent before the Lord that she is doing many things for many-many reasons (even for Him, in her mind) and that it is time to get back to it being above her love for Him, in unforced rhythms of grace.

Another trip around the proverbial block. :/

Note: Danniebelle Hall was a FAV of mine, both whn she toured with Andrae Crouch and during her solo career.  And yes, the words are poignant to me, from then and for now, an anthem for a do-er.  Teach me to love, teach me to give…

 

2 thoughts on “Dreams and Visions

  1. I agree that workaholism is no bueno, and losing sight of the reason for your efforts is also no bueno. Still, your efforts—efforts you have undertaken with such enthusiasm and zeal and wholehearted devotion—are because of Him, are FOR Him, and are honoring TO Him. He has gifted you with administrative talent, and with creative dreams, and with grounded realism. Utilizing those gifts to do well what He has given you IS honoring. Don’t lose sight of Him, for sure. But don’t make small how wholehearted your devotion, in the doing, has been.

    Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

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