What’s Next?

What’s Next?

I’ve dreamed big over the years. The following ridiculous list is a few of the things I have not only dreamed about but have worked towards since I was a teenager.

1. Start a Cartoon Phenomenon and sell the property to a production company. (I wrote the script and developed the characters. Rejected on all fronts.)

2. Rent a Warehouse and start a wrestling promotion. (I even drew up the building plans. I only lacked one thing. Money!)

3. Record an album of my own written music and use it to start a record label. (The best thing I ever did was give up on this. The process of recording a song makes me a miserable person to be around.)

4. Start a marketing company that helps smaller churches reach their growth potential. (Whoops! Small churches can’t afford the service.)

5. Write a book that would change an entire denomination. (Currently pending.)

It would be embarrassing to list all of the things I haven’t accomplished over the years. Although all of these items have gone unfulfilled, they are all things that I have truly believed were accomplish-able at some point in my life. And everything I learned in the process of pursuing these dreams proved to be fundamental to what God wanted to REALLY do in me.

I got the strange urge to build a pro-wrestling news website years ago. Brilliant. To manage such a high-class, intellectual and information-heavy site, I decided I needed to learn a new technology. I built that site, and it was amazing. The 2 people that visited the site over it’s lifetime thought so too. While that project was a devastating failure, 3 months later I was tasked to build a website from the ground up for the 2nd largest Christian television network in the world. The system that I learned was the backbone of the new site, something that I couldn’t have done without that previous experience.

I was undoubtedly being prepared. I learned through that project and many others that life is a constant process of God inspired preparation, one assignment leading to the next.

So that begs the question. What are you doing right now, no matter how unimportant or crazy it seems, that will prepare you for the future assignment God has waiting for you? Your absurd business idea might fail, but the knowledge you gain may be the building blocks for a new career path. The blog you are writing may not become a web sensation, but you might just be sketching out a viewpoint that will shape how you minister for the rest of your life.

I encourage you to pursue your crazy dreams, and do it with seriousness and dedication. Be confident, not in the success of the project, but what God is teaching you. Only He knows what we’re being prepared for…