Passion, Dreams, and the Love that Never Fails

Life. What do we live for? Not just what “makes us tick,” but what is the passion that burns our hearts? That ever-present longing for great things. The dream that slumber beneath the surface waiting to be realized; yearning to be pursued, tried, and found. Embraced by the desire to change the world and fueled by the flames of compassion. What do we really live for?

There is a God who is greater than everything else in this world. He is triune, indescribable, and His love burns brighter than a thousand suns. He came down to this earth as Love to heal the broken. Rest to the weary. Relief to the burdened. Freedom to the enslaved. Refuge to the displaced. Life to the dead. Hope for the lost. Light in the darkness. Grace to the ailing. Mercy to the sinner. Truth to the searching. Faith to the despairing. Fulfillment to the longing. Sustenance to the desperate.

Love. In all its wonder and glory and splendor. Given to us at such a high price. A sacrifice unmatched, unlike anything this world has ever seen.

This Love is the love we know. The Love we see inside the pages of Scripture, in the surrender of our lives, and in the passion of our worship. Love that always trusts. Always hopes. Always perseveres.

This Love is the love that never fails.

–Joel

Guest blogger Joel Hobgood on dreams

Tiffany asked me to share with you guys a dream I had last Tuesday.

Check this out: For the past week or so I’ve felt like God wants to show me who He is in ways I have never experienced before. Wednesday night before I went to bed, I was reading through some posts on this blog and the stories got me thinking about how the Holy Spirit works in ways we don’t always understand. In Joel 2, there’s a passage that talks about God pouring His Spirit on all people and His sons and daughters will prophesy and have visions and dream dreams. So I think to myself “Why not?” and began to ask God to speak to me in my dream that night in a way that I could understand.

In my dream that night, I stood in an open field facing Joey West. We were praying for God to speak to Joey and reveal Himself because he’s seeking God desperately for something. As we prayed, I saw clearly in my mind my friend Beth and the number 4 in Roman numerals. Something about the vision told me that the number 4 was significant in her life. Joey and I continued to pray and I reached my right hand out and placed it on Joey’s neck. When my hand made contact with him, Joey lifted his head and said “There it is! I can see it, I can see it!”

Then I woke up.

As I got ready for class that morning, the dream was clear in my mind and I couldn’t help thinking that I needed to talk to Beth and Joey about it so I sent them both texts explaining my dream. Joey replied back saying he had a really weird dream but couldn’t remember the details, so I asked him if there was anything he was really seeking God for (like he was in my dream). He tells me “yeah dude, that’s crazy because I was writing in my journal last night that i was desperate to hear from Him about what to do with my life.” I told him that because he was seeking so hard after God, He was going to show him what that is really soon and recommended he read Psalm 14:2 and Psalm 34.

Meanwhile, Beth replied saying “there are definitely a lot of things in my life that have to do with the number four. that’s crazy!” This was on Thursday (4/2) and on Friday (4/4 – Hmm…That’s interesting…) we had a two hour conversation about discovering God’s purpose for your life. I had basically just met Beth the week before my dream. It is so clear to me that God desires to use us to speak His truth into the lives of others for His glory!

What do you think? Have any stories like mine happened to you before?

–Joel