The Valley is Necessary
“God has given me a dream!” That’s wonderful! “I don’t know how to start.” For me, I spent years researching how to make The Marketplace dream a reality. I spent my own money on books, classes, and trips abroad. My family sacrificed for this dream. Lou had to hold the fort down when I was in West Africa for 3 weeks, not to mention Kenya for 2 weeks. My kids were teens when I was doing shows on the weekends, they didn’t see me on the weekends during show season. The only reason Lou did was because he was standing beside me telling the story. When God gives you a dream, there is always a cost, a financial cost and a personal cost.
We live in a microwave society. We want to pop it in the microwave and it be done in 30 seconds. It doesn’t work like that. When God gives you a dream, He prepares you to be able to handle it. This could take years. If God gave me The Marketplace 5 years earlier, I would have run it into the ground. I wasn’t ready. The years of research to create The Marketplace wasn’t just to create a sustainable model, it was also to prepare me.
Was there a cost? Absolutely, but I would pay it again. You see to have these incredible mountain top moments, you have to walk through the valley. Many times God dreams don’t become a reality because we won’t walk through the valley. We won’t do the work. It’s too hard. It’s too long of a wait. We start looking at other people walking out their God dream and start comparing our dream against theirs and sometimes copy theirs. Stop it. You will always be a poor replication of them. Here’s the good news, God gave you a dream that is yours. He designed it for you. No one can do it but you! Here’s the best part- He wants you to succeed more than you do! Just as God has given you the dream, He will help you achieve it. Listen carefully and then do it. It’s really that simple. Will people understand your dream? Will they try to dissuade you? Gracious this is a whole another post!
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