For years, I dreamed about writing a book and being a professional speaker. I had vivid images of what it would look and feel like to be in the front of the room giving a speech. I would start to write a book, but could get the main points down on paper but the rest of the words were lost.
This went on for close to 20 years. It was just a dream. I needed to turn it into a goal, but I did not have complete confidence that it was realistic. One of the requirements of a good goal is to be realistic. I guess that I will keep dreaming. Then, after attending another conference, I would get a new spark to start the process again. Once more, I hit the same struggles to get the words on paper. Excitement turned to disappointment. “There is nothing wrong with dreaming”, I told myself.
Around six years or so ago, I was at a retreat for a catering association that belonged to. One of the sessions was on meditation. We were asked to write on an index card what we would wish for if we could have anything in the world. Some people wrote things like winning the lottery. I wrote that I wanted to write a book and be a professional speaker. We sealed these up in envelopes and proceeded to meditate over them.
As the presenter took us through the meditation process and we were getting totally relaxed, I took the approach of going into deep prayer. I have always had a strong faith, but never really put it into practice on a regular basis as I do today. I laid this
dream into God’s hands. A seed was planted. Some seeds take longer to germinate than others. Mine took around three to four years. In the fall of 2010, I was trying to write again and hit the same wall. I prayed as though I still had that envelope with the index card inside and was holding it in my hands.
I asked God if I was wasting my time. Should I give up on my dream? I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea of Faith Guided Leadership. Could I actually trace my leadership traits that I strongly believed in back to my religious faith? I could hardly sleep the rest of the night because I did not want to lose these ideas. I could feel my dream turning into a goal. “But, was it realistic?” I asked myself and God. I started to do research in the Bible to validate my beliefs about leadership. I got a kindle for Christmas that year.
My main search for books was how to publish a book when you have no money to invest in it. I found so many books that were free or only 99 cents that walked me through the process. I found just as many free books on how to write a book. I kept thinking that God was guiding me through the process. I set a goal of publishing it by the middle of September and calculated how many words I would have to write each week based on the size of the potential book. Now it was measurable.
My dream became a realistic goal when I got God involved. It would never have
happened without His intervention.
Philippians 4:13 ESV
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
