Refine it.

When the angel Gabriel approached Mary and explained the plan to bring Jesus into this world, little did she know what would actually happen thirty years later. It took all that time of patience and a life of experiences to get the full picture of what Gabriel asked of her that night. She endured a lot before she had a true understanding. It wasn’t until Jesus was over 30 years old that she could fully comprehend Jesus’ role in this world…… along with her own.

In our culture, we want everything NOW. But God’s timing is so different than ours and His timing and our current culture’s timing have gotten OUT OF WHACK!

Have you prayed about something that hasn’t happened? Have you given up on praying about your hopes and dreams because they didn’t happen in the timing you thought it should?

I did.

I once wrote out and prayed over my dreams. It was part of my daily journaling.

But I stopped.

I stopped because I couldn’t see evidence or feel anything was happening. I truly felt like it should have happened quickly. It occurred to me that everything is in God’s timing but I didn’t care. I wanted it faster.

In my current Bible study, there are journal prompts. One asks you to remember the lost dreams and pray over them daily for 7 days. I’ve been doing this and have felt the Holy Spirit drop some things in my heart regarding a promise that I thought was far gone.

But, because of that prompt to pray over that dream for seven days, interesting things have begun to happen.

God has used this blog to prompt several people to reach out to me. They have all asked me the same question.
“Have you thought about writing a book?”
(You know who you are.)

Actually… yes, I have …. for as long as I can remember.

Have you waited to see a dream come true?

• Have you put it on hold?
• Have you stopped praying about it because you didn’t see evidence or feel anything was happening?

Can I encourage you to mark your calendar for 7 days to pray about that dream?

Be bold enough to ask God to put that dream to the fire test.

• Either burn it up completely so you can move on or
• Refine it like a silversmith refines silver – until he sees himself in the reflection.

I did. The dream didn’t get burned up.

God is refining it…

• After I’d left it to die.
• After I’d stopped praying over it.
• After I let it go.
• After I got impatient.

Just like Mary had no idea the weight of what was being asked of her, nor do we. What plan does God have for you through a dream you have allowed to die?

• One you’ve allowed to be forgotten?
• One that you can’t address because there’s too much pain associated with it?

My prayer for you is that you don’t give up. That you keep bringing your dream to Him and be bold enough to allow Him to burn it on the alter if you need to move on. I pray that if He decides to refine it, that you’ll trust Him with that dream. I pray that you’ll drop it at His feet and wait. I pray that when He picks it up to show it to you, there’s so much clarity and lack of confusion and chaos that you’ll have a certainty about it you didn’t even know you could.  I pray he launches your dream in such a way that it feels natural. No striving on your part, just managing what He has begun.  In Jesus Name, Amen

Very Humbly Yours,

Jennifer Edwards
Author (Even typing it, I cringed at the enormity of it)