Do you still trust Me when it seems your dreams have failed?

Hebrews 13:5

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Shattered Pieces

Sometimes our dreams can be like a Chinese vase that is dropped on the floor and shattered into a hundred different pieces, which makes it impossible to ever put back together again, but God can take a shattered dream of ours and assemble the pieces into a much different and far better way. Have you ever had a dream shattered before your eyes? Isn’t it hard to trust God when that happens? Sometimes the hardest part of trusting God is when our dreams are shattered because what we thought was part of our future can suddenly be taken away. What do you do when your dreams have been shattered? Do you try and pick up the pieces yourself and try to glue them back together to begin again? Maybe you just give up on dreaming altogether, but don’t you do that.

The Brokenhearted

The irony is that God cannot fix what is first not broken. In other words, until a person sees their sinful state and then runs to the cross of Christ, God cannot help them. God is near the brokenhearted and promises to save all who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). In fact, God ensures us that He will never despise anyone who is broken and has a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). The Hebrew word for “contrite” is “dakah” and means “to be crushed, to be broken,” so for those of us who have had our dreams crushed, God promises to not despise us for this. He is kind to the poor in spirit (the humbled) and reaches out to the needy (Psalm 109:16). So what can we do when our dreams have been shattered? We can do much.

Picking up the Pieces

When our dreams have been shattered, we have to trust God enough to realize He knows what He’s doing. If one dream is shattered, then He likely has something different, likely something better, for us. If one is taken, then He can replace it with another that is best for us. We cannot see around the corner of time like God, so perhaps the dreams we sought after that failed would have in the end done us more harm than good. God always knows that which is best for us, better than we ourselves know. I trust Him even in the storms because He is sovereign over the storms. One storm might bring us into the best harbor of all and better than the one we had originally sought. Our failures are never final. Without failure, we’d never know success. Trust God, obey Him, and leave the consequences of it all to Him, Who alone holds our future. I would rather trust a God that I cannot see than trust in myself with eyes that do.

A Closing Prayer

Great God in heaven, You alone know what is for my best. Help me to trust You and not what I think is best for my life. You know so much better what is best for me, so please help me put all the pieces of my shattered dreams into Your hands so that You can make something better. In the King of kings and Lord of lords’ name, Jesus Christ, I pray.

Amen