Friday, May 4, 2007
It's really a beautiful area of the Southwestern United States, except for this one horrendous eyesore. It's a graveyard for cars. Acre after acre, and you've seen them, they’re covered with cars that have been discarded, wrecked, crushed, and stacked several cars deep. And every time I pass this one and see all these trashed and mashed cars, I can't help but thinking to myself, "Just think, one day that car was somebody's dream come true." Someone probably wished for that car, got that car, and showed everybody this car they were so proud of. Look at it now!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dreams On the Scrapheap."
When I look at that auto junkyard, I see what was once somebody's dream now just another piece of junk on the scrapheap. Some of us have lives that are like that junkyard; a pile of what was once our dreams, now laying on the scrapheap. Dreams that either didn't happen or didn't turn out to be what we thought they would; a lot of disappointment, discouragement, disillusionment, and as a result, a search now for a dream that won't let us down or even turn into a nightmare.
It's strange, in a way, that often it's at the end of our dreams that we find the reason we're living. Until then, we're pouring everything we've got into what we think will give us the love and meaning and the fulfillment that we're looking for. But sooner or later, our path of dreams lets us down; it leaves us empty. That's when we might finally be ready to consider what God thinks will make our life make sense. Since He's the One who made you, He's the One who knows why you're here. It was the dream He dreamed for you even before there was a you! It's the destiny you were made for, lived out one meaningful day at a time.
God talks about His plans for you in Jeremiah 29:11, our word for today from the Word of God. "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Those are the plans you were created for. Unfortunately, we've spent most of our life on our own dreams; a lot of which are now on the scrapheap. But now may be that time when you finally embrace what you were made for by embracing the One who made you; the One of whom the Bible says, "All things were created by Him and for Him" ( Colossians 1:16). And that includes you.
But we've been building our life without the Architect, and things keep collapsing on us - disappointing us. We have, in the Bible's words, "gone astray" and turned to our "own way" ( Isaiah 53:6). We've all gotten way off course and it took the greatest act of love in cosmic history to get us back - the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for our rebellion and our sin; our takeover of the life God made. The moment you reach out to Jesus and tell Him that you're His from now on, you start to belong to your Creator, to experience His forgiving for every wrong thing you've ever done. You start living God's great dream for your life when you give yourself to Jesus, the One who loved you enough to die for all your sin.
If you want to begin today to belong to the One who you were made by and made for, would you tell Him that? And we'd be glad to help you make that connection and find a simple explanation of how to begin with Jesus if you’ll just go to our website. It’s yoursforlife.net. A lot of people have found encouragement there in being sure they belong to Jesus. I think you might too. Or you can call for my booklet Yours For Life at this toll free number. It’s 877-741-1200.
Those wasted days, wasted years, end the moment you open your life to Jesus Christ. For you, the dream that will never disappoint could begin this very day.