The Dream Destroyer

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  John 10:10

Jesus is speaking here. He is the I in I came. He contrasts the reason He came with the reason that the thief comes: abundant life vs. theft, death, and destruction.

It is pretty easy for nice, well-intentioned people to be totally blind to their thievery and to the destruction they cause. In context, Jesus was speaking to a group of Pharisees who had just heard the testimony of a formerly blind man whom Jesus had healed. The Pharisees were touchy because Jesus was using figure-of-speech parables to talk to them. They did not understand what he was saying to them, but they knew he was making a judgment about their moral condition that made them tetchy.

They did not think of themselves as thieves, but they were robbers, murderers, and pilferers of spiritual things. They were killing the light in men's eyes and destroying the dreams that the Lord had placed in men's hearts. 

      Where there is no vision, the people run amok and perish.   Proverbs 29:18

A more literal translation is, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint." Destroying a person's revelation from God will lead to destruction of that person's life. Stealing his prophetic oracle, taking away his dream, is one of the most dastardly crimes you can commit against another person.

Without a prophetic revelation from God, the people get off course spiritually. This worked three different ways in the case of the runaway bride.
1.     The Bride. The bride did have a God-given vision. Her dream began as a child, and she knew her destiny was to be a wife. . But Satan wanted to jettison her destiny and destroy her life. He got her to begin to doubt her dream, and eventually she ripped it up herself.  Score a big one for the devil.
2.     The Groom. The groom had a revelation from the Lord. The timing was right for him to become a husband. Isaiah 42:9, "Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you." Notice the order: the revelation was given first, then it was to come forth. The groom was out of debt, had a savings, lost weight, went to the gym, studied the Bible on the role of a husband, and was prepared to stand in faith.  He willingly, diligently, and lovingly tried to make life for KatieLyn as wonderful as he could. He stayed true to the vision and never wandered off-course.
3.     The Mother of the Bride. It is unlikely that she ever caught the vision because she has been so two-faced. Early on, she said the couple's meeting and engagement was "a God-thing." But after she saw where Joe lived, she was making judgments and spewing out opinions without a shred of faith. I don't think Romans 4:21 is in her Bible: that whatsoever he has promised, he is able also to perform.  It was only after KatieLyn ran home in the middle of the night that she ever claimed to "know the right thing," and then she said she had concerns "from the beginning." Not only did she run amok herself, she also helped destroy KatieLyn's dream.

You don't have to take the life of a human to be a murderer. Destroying God's call on a person's life is still a murderous foul spirit, just slid down the scale a bit. And, yes, God can and sometimes does restore the person whom you stole from, and even bless them beyond what you took, but they won't be the same after you did your damage, and of course, you are in a far, far worse position than before you helped destroy God's dream.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer (of revelation), or as a thief (of dreams) or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. 1Peter 4:15
But when KatieLyn saw the risks at stake and the strength of faith needed to complete the preparation for her dream, she ran off into the night and then decided it wasn't really God's will after all.

I dearly wish that she had stuck it out during the hard part because chances are that she will never be completely satisfied. There will be a part of her that cannot feel settled or fulfilled until she repents and comes to terms with the fact that she screwed up. She aborted her dream. She turned her back on the Lord's provision. 

The devil is a thief that almost daily tries to kill, steal and destroy the plans God has for us. In Psalm 27:13, David wrote, "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living." KatieLyn stopped believing that she would see God's goodness. It took an effort of faith for the psalmist to save himself from the despair which threatened to smother him.  Notice that God had already promised the good stuff. It was up to David to believe that he would see it. God wasn't going to force David to believe He'd told him the truth. That is the action of faith—making the choice to believe he would see it before he actually saw it.

KatieLyn's mother could not believe in the dream before she saw it, in part because she never listened long enough to hear God say it, in part because she didn't trust that her daughter had heard God, and also because her background has left her with very shallow knowledge of God's process.

Isaiah describes the *process* several times. It is a good book for starting a study on this. We already mentioned the example from 42:9, "Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you." Isaiah 48:3 describes the same process of (a) declaring it first, then (b) bringing it to pass: I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. Amos 3:7 gives the promise, "For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets." Again, the revealing precedes the action. Since Pentecost in the Book of Acts, when the Spirit was given, believers don't have to go seek a prophet. They can train their own spirits to hear the Holy Spirit. Hear first, later receive.

Apparently KatieLyn, and especially her mom, really stink at hearing the Spirit of God. Gwen in particular insisted on seeing how everything would all fit together first, then she would believe. But faith does not work that way. Faith is active believing, it's trust before you see the details. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6 If you insist on seeing the proof first, you do not possess a trusting love for the Lord. 

The Lesson
Without faith to believe in your dream, it will never become a reality.  Do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward. Hebrews 10:35.  Don't let the devil steal God's promise to you, and don't let other people talk you into giving up your God-inspired dream. God did not call off this wedding. That was the enemy's doing.