What not to do when God gives you a dream

“How did you start The Marketplace?”

Did you know when God gave me this dream, I didn’t even know it would involve product?! November 2007, Lou and I were watching a 60 Minutes piece about Plumpy Nut. This product was changing the lives of malnourished children in Africa. I wanted to donate to this cause. At the end of the segment, I clearly heard, “I want you and not your money.”  I remember looking at Lou and asking him, “What did you just say?” He said, “I didn’t say anything.” I had my own Samuel “Here I Am” moment.  I looked at Lou, “God wants me to use my business giftings and somehow it would be international.” That’s all I had. At that moment, the dream was born.

I envisioned this dream to involve microloans and business training. With a degree in business finance, that made sense. I read countless books, attended online courses, went to Senegal to study sustainable projects with Heifer International, and attended a conference at the University of Ghana on Village Savings & Loans. I was learning what I thought I needed to run a sustainable ministry.

I studied and waited but no doors were opening. Did I hear God right?

When God gives you a dream, He doesn’t tell you how to complete it, how to walk in it, or what it is even going to look like. He just wants you to trust Him. The Marketplace started with a simple, “Yes.” Would I be willing to do whatever He asked? That “Yes” changed the course of my life.

I imagined what I thought The Marketplace dream should look like and not how God saw it. Do you see a problem here? Instead of waiting for God to show me, I relied on myself and ran ahead.

Once I quit trying to make it happen the way I thought it should, God started opening the right doors. The Marketplace did involve using my business background and it was international, but it didn’t look like how I thought it should. It took 5 years from when God gave me the dream until The Marketplace became a reality.

Has God given you a dream and it hasn’t happened yet? Or it doesn’t look like anything you envisioned? Are you trying to rely on your own strength to get it done and not on His?

I totally get it. But I am here to tell you, once you release control of what you think the dream is supposed to look like, God will show you the 1st step. Once He does, just do it. He will then give you the next step. Almost 11 years later, The Marketplace looks nothing like what I envisioned. It’s way better!

When God gives you a dream, trust He will tell you how to do it. I would love to hear your God dream and encourage you. Sometimes just talking to another dreamer helps give you the courage to take that 1st step.