to transformation goes through dreams (unknown). What dreams have you been having lately? Did you give up on some of them?  I was speaking on the phone with a long-time friend and something really hit me. I am not a spring chicken but I am also not dead in the water. I am in a very crucial time in my life. I am still living between birth and death, the hypen in between and I want my life to mean something. I want to die spent. I want to be all destined for me to be. But I need to remember that transformation for myself and the community around me comes through the dreams that God has planted in my mind. The dreaming but also the doing.

Many of us dream ALOT and that is all we do. We don’t step forward to take the risk to do what God has called us out to do. I confess I am a chicken. But not a total chicken (lol). Yet I have purposed this year to come out of the chicken zone and go for it! As my friend and I spoke, we determined that the main thing that keeps us from doing what we know in our gut we should be doing is, well…fear.  Fear sucketh. It really paralyzes us and before we know it, years have gone by and we are still wondering what purpose does God have for my life. But unlike what most people would like…it is not the fear of failing. It is the fear of succeeding. Of being called out to do something that is so much bigger than we dreamed for yourselves that we just can’t phathom it. So we decide to shrink back and do something that is nice and perhaps helpful and even noble but not what the ultimate plan for our life was.

I’ve had great women of God with a calling and with opportunities that surely seemed like God was opening doors, say "no I’ll stay here," when God was getting ready to pull them from the chicken zone. The dreams? They still have them. Some have managed to convince themselves that those dreams could not possibly have been God’s dream for them. They are just too big. This is the time for us all to step up. We cannot die with purpose still inside. That would be so tragic. More tragic than losing you would be never seeing your imprint on this world.

I talked to my old boss on the phone today (who I also consider a spiritual dad and social justice mentor in my life) Rev. Dr. Ray Rivera and he asked me a question today…he asked "what are your goals for next year?" I said, without hesitation, I’m ABD but I want that doctorate in hand, out of the way. And he said, "wow Liz, with all the stuff you had in your life these last few years you have been steady in purpose and now here you are, almost Dr. Liz." And that my friends is it…Consistency of purpose comes when you know that you know that you know that God has a plan for your life because he is a Jeremiah 29:11 God and an Eph. 3:20 God. I am no longer going to sell myself short and I hope that no one is hating on others who are transforming the world through the power of their God-given dreams. Nelson Mandela once said this in a speech, reflect on it: 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Think about this for yourself…what is your fear? Is it really that you think you are going to fail or is it that you just have this inner voice saying, if you step up the world around you will never be the same?