God-Sized Dreams: A 30-Day Journey of Faith and CourageSample

What If Someone Else Is Already Living Your Dream?

I can almost hear the anxiety in her email as she types, “Please don’t share this with anyone. If it gets out, someone else might do it.”

Later in the day, someone else confesses, “There are already so many people doing what I feel called to do. How can my voice even make a difference?”

Over dinner, a friend says to me, “Even when I make progress, there’s still someone doing it better than I am. Shouldn’t I just cheer them on?”

I nod in understanding at the fear, questioning, and hesitation in these statements. When a God-sized dream first comes to us, it often feels like a brand-new revelation—as if no one else in the whole history of the universe has ever thought of this idea. Then quickly we realize that whatever we want to do or share has already been done or said before. So we sigh and think, “Time to start over.”

But that’s the reality of God-sized dreams. Wise Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV). But he didn’t say, “There is no one new under the sun.” Because every one of us is one of a kind, and there will never be anyone else like us again. It doesn’t matter if someone else has said it or done it already. You haven’t. We need your version, your perspective, your voice in this world. You’re simply irreplaceable.

And you are here for such a time as this—to share this God-sized dream with your generation. I love how Scripture says, “David... served God’s purpose in his own generation” (Acts 13:36 NIV). You are called to offer what God has placed within you to our world right here, right now. No one else will live the exact amount of time you will, in the place you will, with the people whom God will have cross your path.

You can’t say, “Oh, they’ll get what they need from someone else,” because if God intends them to receive it through you, that’s not true. “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

In other words, there are things in this world that only you can do. That means that there is no such thing as better in the kingdom—only different. You are not competing with your brothers and sisters. Instead, all of us are completing God’s plan together.

Lisa-Jo Baker says it this way:

"No one can steal your dream because God has built it into you.

No one can write your book or design your art.

No one can launch your venture like you.

No one can do that secret impossible thing that you’ve got your heart set on instead of you.

You are the DNA of the dream.

Even if you both started with the exact same premise, you’d end up glorious worlds apart as distinct as your fingerprints.

Because you are.

What God gives you, he gives you on purpose."

We need your part. We need your heart. We need your God-sized dream.

Go Deeper

Read 139:13-18 as a reminder of how God intentionally created you.

God, thank you for preparing good works in advance for me to do. When I’m tempted to compare myself to someone else, please help me refocus on you and who you’ve called me to be. I’m made in your image, and there’s a part of who you are that you want to express through who I am. That’s a beautiful mystery. Amen.

What’s one truth you want to remember?

What’s the next small step you’ll take?