Friday, August 17, 2007
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Every once in a while as you're cruising down the highway, you'll see one of those trucks - the ones that are carrying a truckload of smashed cars. We're talking, you know like, steel pancakes here. Sometimes you'll drive by the scrap yard where these junkers end up, and there you'll see row after row with stacks of these flattened old vehicles. "Junk," you say. Today it is, but there was a day when that hunk of steel was someone's dream come true. It was the new wheels they'd hoped for and saved for; a prize they wouldn't let anyone touch - now flattened.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Yesterday's Dreams."
The last time I passed one of those automobile scrap yards, I got to thinking, "In a way, a lot of our life's dreams end up that way." At one time the dream was new and shiny - something we thought would make us happy for a long time. But so many dreams end up letting us down - flattened. Excitement turns to tedium. Having what I wanted turns to restlessness and dissatisfaction. A great gain suddenly becomes a great loss. Yesterday's discovery becomes today's disappointment.
We thought those friends would do it for us. They didn't. A girlfriend, a boyfriend, a husband, a wife, children - good, but not enough. Or sometimes a dream turned into a nightmare. Yesterday's dream job, or home, or degree, or milestone, or money, it's amazing how many of these seem so flat before long. I guess there are at least three ways that yesterday's dream turn into today's disappointment. Your dream gets flattened because you never get it, or because you get it and you lose it, or because you get it and find out that it wasn't the answer you thought it would be.
This cycle of disappointing or disappointed dreams breeds sort of an "un-peace" in our heart; this restlessness to find out what is the dream that will finally fulfill us. Our Creator steps into this satisfaction void with a word that might put us on the right track. It's recorded in the Bible in Isaiah 55, beginning with verse 1. It's our word for today from the Word of God. He says, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Why spend money (or your life for that matter) on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen to Me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." That's it - the end of our lifelong search for meaning, for peace, for what goes in that hole in our heart.
Jesus Christ has made this amazing promise: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never thirst" ( John 6:35). Jesus says He can finally satisfy your lifelong heart-hunger. Here's why: what we're missing in our soul is the God who made us. We're missing Him because we've kept Him on the margins of our life, running things our way, not His way. Which has put an eternal wall between us and Him. But because He loves you so much, He sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the death penalty for our "me first" lives and to conquer death by coming back from His grave. You've given yourself to other pursuits that weren't the dream after all. When you do that with Jesus, the wall between you and God comes down forever and a love relationship with your Creator finally completes you.
In a world of flattened hopes and dreams, the purpose, the relationship you were made for, they're right now right in front of you because Jesus is moving in your heart to move you to Him. Your part is to give yourself completely to this one who gave Himself totally on the cross for you. With a faith commitment like that, He'll come into your life and He'll do what only He can do.
We'd like to help you know for sure that you've begun a relationship with this Jesus. If you'll just go to our website, you'll find a very simple plan there; a simple road to beginning with Jesus. The website is yoursforlife.net. Or just call for my booklet Yours For Life at 877-741-1200. Please, grab Him while He's close.