Tackling the What’s Holding You Back

So Holley’s God-sized dream team today is writing about what you can do to stop delaying and start doing on your dream.  So that is so hard, right?  Because it’s a lot easier to think about your dream.  It’s not prone to failure if you dream in your head but don’t put any actions around it.  And what if it’s the wrong dream?

I came up with a list for this post of how to get going.  But then I looked at it and it didn’t feel very authentic.  Then I started to write about things I had done when I’d wanted to move on my own dreams but that didn’t feel honest.  I even entitled this post “Start Doing,” but had to go back and change it.  Because the reality is, God has done a lot of the moving despite me.  My latest change, which put me more in line with what He wants for me and allows me to also act on this dream thing, didn’t happen because of ANYTHING I had done.  I got a telephone call.  I got an opportunity.  I didn’t DO anything.

But I kept going back to this: what is holding you back?  I have recently been in touch with a woman who feels God is leading her one direction but her spouse is not supportive of her acting on the opportunity.  Ugh.  What if there is a real reason that you can’t act even though you believe this next door is a door you SHOULD be walking through?  Maybe your parents are completely at odds with the decision.  Your best friend is telling you it’s wrong.  Your spouse or fiance says now is not time.

It’s heartbreaking.   You actually are ready to stop delaying but there is a reason you feel like you have to delay again.  Let me disclose, I could not directly relate to this woman’s challenge with her husband because my husband has said yes to every hair-brained scheme I’ve put before him as long as it doesn’t bankrupt the family.  Can I start a blog?  Sure, just don’t talk about me.  (Sorry honey.)  Can I go to a writing conference in North Carolina and talk to publishers about writing a book?  Sure, good luck, just don’t quit your day job.  Can I start a new job and publish a book the same year?  Yep, do we have stuff for dinner?  

But I mentioned when we talked about having encouragers for our dream, that some of us have had naysayers around us.  But that is even different when it’s just a friend who isn’t on board than when it is a parent or child or spouse whose life your decisions truly affect.  Then you have to pray.  Then you HAVE to stop.  I do not recommend charging ahead into uncharted territory until you can get your spouse on board.  Even if your spouse has a different set of beliefs or a lack of faith, your marriage will suffer if you move forward in the face of him saying, “Please, not now.”

So let’s pray about those roadblocks.   I would love to pray with you if you are facing this particular situation right now.  If you feel God is leading you in a direction and you just can’t get the buy in you have to have from your family then start to pray.  Because God can work in their minds and hearts.  And maybe they are seeing something about the situation that you can’t see in your heart-swelling desire to jump in.  So God may work on their heart, or He might work on yours.

Ephesians 1:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And hemade known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.  In him we were also chosen,having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.  For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spiritof wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength,  which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.  And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.