The Journey—The Dream Dies Part 3

Often the journey is long and difficult and sometimes it’s hard to even hear from God. I’m sure, like me, you are often wondering where God is when nothing seems to be going right. Nobody said taking the old road would be easy.

Last summer, I lost the ministry I started back in 1987. To say the least, it was one of the most challenging aspects of my journey as a media missionary. How do I regroup and continue on with the mission? Where do the resources and equipment come from? What’s next? I decided to take some time and look for answers. I headed West to Glacier National Park in Montana. For me, finding God in nature has always been a good source of inspiration. Clearing your head and removing yourself from everyday activities is essential to hear from God.

I hiked over 220 miles. I wanted to hear from God. It’s taken me some time and perspective in understanding what God was trying to tell me. I know I was going through a grieving process. You don’t leave a ministry after 20 years without some impact on your identity and purpose. God was trying to help me recover from my loss. But more importantly he was giving me the inspiration to start writing a book. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the first chapters were starting to materialize. He wanted me to join him in his work. The book that I’ve written, A Media Culture, Crisis or Opportunity, is part of his plan. I just didn’t realize what was going on.

Part of the process of seeing where God is at work in the world and joining him in that effort requires us to allow our dream or vision to die. My vision was to build a media center for media missionaries. I wanted to create a program that would develop future media professionals as media missionaries and help them enter into the mainstream entertainment industry. We would provide all the necessary training and high-end equipment to accomplish these objectives. As far as I know, no training facility such as this exists anywhere.

Four years ago, I started a film program for high school students. It was very successful and rewarding, and I had hoped it would serve as a foundation to launch the media center. We had a number of volunteers and interns who were receiving film, television, and media training. I was hopeful for the future because so many positive things seemed to be occurring. Media was my passion, vision and dream. And nowhere was I better fulfilled than in teaching and training young people to be tomorrow’s media missionaries.

But was I putting my vision before God? I’m sure God was in this, and he wanted it to become a reality. I think at some point, we all have to decide what’s more important? Is it putting God first or putting first our ministry or vision. As difficult as this sounds, it is possible that our vision can become an idol or an obstacle to our spiritual growth. Are we willing to let it go and die so that God can accomplish his will in our lives? I’d reached a crisis of faith. Could I allow the media center and the television program to die so that I could find God’s perfect will on my journey as a media missionary?

When we join God in his work, I believe it’s at that time when God can give our vision and our passion back to us because we now have a proper ordering of things. It’s not our work or ministry or how we can help God out. He doesn’t need our help. He is the creator of the universe. I’m sure he is quite capable of taking care of things on his own. Our vision will come back when it becomes involved in what God is doing in the world. They become the same thing—our vision for ministry and God at work. If, on the other hand, it is not part of what God is doing then it should die. What I think God is saying to us is that if we have a dream or vision (and it may very well be part of what God is doing), we have to be willing to give it up or surrender it to God so that he can receive all the honor and praise that is intended only for him alone. That won’t happen if it is OUR vision and OUR dream. If we don’t do this, then our vision or dream becomes more about what we want to do than what God is doing, and we will have to fulfill that vision or dream in our own power and strength. God wants us in a place where we must depend on him.


So now my journey is about exploring what God is doing. In the process, if I align my life with what God wants to do, he may restore my vision of a media center. It will undoubtedly be different than my plan. Perhaps, I will be part of helping someone else to develop a media center elsewhere in the country. But whatever he does, it will be fine with me as long as I join him in his work. For now, he has me writing this book, and it may lead to the completion and the dream of a media center. How that happens is in God’s hands.

So I will continue on my journey and get the book ready for publishing. What comes next is up to God.