Letting Go of Your Dream Life
2022 may have been tough for many of us. Maybe it had just been another year that prove to us that in a lifetime no year will pass without pain, disappointment, and loss. Some of us may have had it harder last year, and our hearts echo how Anne of Green Gables described her life, “My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”
I had a slight taste of Anne’s cry when God said a hard “No” to two of my prayers last year related to some of my biggest dreams. These two No’s from God are his grace and mercy for me because they drove me back to the core of what I really live for. This quote best articulates what I had to re-learn as I look back at 2022 and look forward to 2023.
Jesus promises that life is found in loving him not in following our dreams.
— Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Jesus
Losing your life
Our dreams or any good thing we look forward to in this world may not come. Our hopes can be deferred. We can grieve our losses and unrealized dreams. But may this bring us to a point of embracing the life we now have knowing that life is found when we lose it to Jesus.
Matthew 16:24–25
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
The life you dream of can be one of the hardest to let go of. But we can rest and rejoice in the truth that our story, no matter how many buried hopes and unrealized dreams we have, is part of God’s grand story of redemption. Weeping may tarry on this side of eternity but joy is sure to come (Psalm 30:5) Our hope is never going to be in the life we wanted. Our hope is Jesus and the blessed future we have in him.
If we lose our life to Christ by denying ourselves and following him, all our pain, disappointment, and loss will always be the pathway to life — to the best life Jesus has for us. Sure, some of our hopes are buried but may these buried hopes be like seeds of love for Jesus that grow into fruitful life-giving trees.
Living the best life, loving Jesus
The best life Jesus has for us may not be the life we wanted. But with him going behind us, before us, and beside us, the journey will always be worth it because Christ is so enormously much better than anything we may lose or gain in this life. With this, we can live our best life this year by loving Jesus, our Lord, Savior, and Treasure.
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Valleen Bacarisa