The Dream Sets the Agenda ♥ Part One

Technically, today's post isn't a lesson "from" a runaway bride. This post is a lesson "about" a runaway bride.
The difference is that no one ever taught this particular runaway, KatieLyn, that it was not only okay for her God-given Dream to set the agenda, but that for maximum blessing and favor, your God-given dream is supposed to set the agenda. God intends for it to work that way.

That dream, that desire that God places in your heart is your anchor, your lodestar, your bull's eye, your cynosure, your navel, your watch tower, your pathfinder, your lighthouse.  Your God-given dream is what keeps you centered and on course. Your dream helps you find your way.

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
That's a promise. The Lord will give. The Hebrew נָתַן has a wide range for translation, and it would not necessarily be wrong to say that the Lord will put upon, bestow, or produce the desires, requests, and dreams of your heart.

The promise in this verse is conditional.  For the Lord to give you your desires, you must first take delight in Him.  If you have been a consistent reader of this blog, then you already know that is where KarieLyn missed it. She allowed the devil to replace her exquisite delight in the Lord's answer to her heart's desire with troubling doubts and fears. When she stopped trusting and delighting in the Lord, her engagement fell apart for her. 


Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel. Psalm 20:4
I quoted this verse in the King James first because it emphasizes "thine own."  That is, your human heart that is the object here. But because modern culture has altered the meaning of the word counsel since King James' scholars finished their translation in 1611, I am also adding, for comparison, the rendering of the Holman Christian Standard Bible® (2009).
May He give you what your heart desires and fulfill your whole purpose. Psalm 20:4

The updated translation gets across the idea that the Lord wants to prosper your plans much better than the King James Version.  Inappropriately, wrongly, and regrettably, KarieLyn got zero support and encouragement in the "Lord's prospering" from home. No one was there to reassure, let alone embolden her, that the Lord did indeed want to prosper her plans and purpose in life. They were still dithering in their own minds and never fully trusted KarieLyn to know God's plan either. No, the poor girl got confrontational misgivings and faith-sapping doubts that provoked her into fighting with her mother.   

How in the world could KarieLyn ditch her God-given dream because fighting with her mom was becoming uncomfortable? How?  It must have been much, much worse than she ever admitted to Joe.

A few disagreements with mom doesn't usually cause a person to lose sight of her polestar.  I have had way more than one person tell me that Joe "dodged a bullet" if KarieLyn is that entangled under the mother's control. No doubt that is true. She is a lovely girl, but she tied her future to her mother's concerns rather than upon God's promises, and that disqualified her from becoming a good wife.

I still hope that someday she will be able to figure that out—that she disqualified herself from receiving the promise of the Lord.  Unfortunately it will probably be very painful for her to realize how over-protective her mother is. And we have seen that KatieLyn does the ostrich thing and sticks her head in the sand when it comes to unpleasantries.

I am now past the 500 word-count and I haven't really started to explain how the dream sets the agenda, so this will be a two-part post. It is critically important to lay this foundation first though:
God gives you your dreams. He does this in two senses, (a) He created you as an individual, forming the dream within your heart, and (b) He gives you the answers to your requests as you walk out the dream. You have been delegated a co-creative role in making the dream come true. It is not all just up to God. Some of it is left up to your own decisions on how much you are willing to submit to the God-given dream. The outcome depends on your choices. God is not sovereign over your will.

The God-given dream, your heart's desire, is a reliable bellwether for finding your purpose in life and charting the direction for your next step.

The enemy was successful in derailing KatieLyn on this point. She stopped trusting this leading and began to think it was just a castle in the air, a pipe dream.  For her, it became a chimera that she needed to run from. Except Joe's love was real. KatieLyn bought into the enemy's lie that her hopes were pie-in-the-sky fantasies of girlhood. But they were not. God had given her a real dream to leave her parents' home and grow to completion in her womanhood. He was bringing it to pass.

Unknowingly, (I did not know her mom was reading all the email that I sent to KatieLyn,) I gave Gwen some ammunition to destroy KatieLyn's dreams. I had written a couple of things that I thought would encourage KatieLyn and help her hold on to the dream. I had no idea that the enemy was using her mother to twist it to make me look like I was being oppressive and manipulative.  If KatieLyn's mom had respected my boundaries, I'd be able to respect her today. (I found out about the disrespect when Gwen bragged about it after the engagement was broken, so I took that to mean she is proud of her behavior.)

Bottom line: KarieLyn deserved to have her God-given dream supported and encouraged, not questioned and berated. In Part Two I will explain why.Until then, here is a hint: The dream sets the agenda.