by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com
Put your Dream to the Test by John C. Maxwell is about asking the right questions so you will pass the test to achieve your dream. "I believe that if you know the right questions to ask, and if you can answer these questions in an affirmative way, you will have an excellent chance of being able to achieve your dreams." From all the people Maxwell has studied, one common definition of a dream that can be put to the test is: "a dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it."
The Dream Test has 10 questions. Here's the right questions. When you maneuver through each of these questions, you have put your dream to the test, and passed the dream test to reach your dream. Maxwell has many delightful true stories for each question that will inspire and give you direction on grabbing your dream to see it through.
The Ownership Question:
Is my dream really my Dream? Take ownership of the dream by being willing to bet on yourself, lead your life instead of just accepting it, love what you do and do what you love, don't compare yourself (or dream) to others, believe in your vision even when others don't understand you. What are your gifts; what do you like about yourself; what makes you feel special, what are the memorable triumphs in your life?
The Clarity Question:
Do I clearly see my dream? A clear dream makes a general idea very specific, becomes clear with effort, affirms your purpose, determines your priorities, gives direction and motivates your team. Seize your dream, see it and share, so others can see it too.
The Reality Question:
Am I depending on factors within my control to achieve my dreams? Believe in cause and effect. Building on your strengths activates the law of least effort, it enables consistently good results, and gives you the highest returns. Work from your highest potential and make your reality your ally.
Then Maxwell leads you through a critical exercise to put this first part in motion. After reflection and some periods of introspection, write down your answers to these questions.
1. What is my dream?
2. What is my starting point? How can begin from where I am now?
3. What are my strengths and weaknesses? Describe at least 5 abilities.
4. What are my current positive and negative habits? Habits that contribute, habits I will need to change.
5. How long must I practice these habits to reach my potential.
The Passion Question:
Does my dream compel me to follow it? Your passion is your driving enthusiasm that gives you ongoing energy and a continued focus. It does three significant things: Passion pulls us up, enabling us to overcome adversity. Passion pushes us out, giving us initiative. Passion positions us well, giving us the greatest odds for success.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. Stoke your passion meter and keep it running hot. Consider your temperament, what's important to you, and overcome the fear of being different from others... you're never too old or too young.
To review again quickly, ask if it is your dream, do you see it clearly, does it match your talents and temperament, and are you stifled by the fear of being different?
The Pathway Question:
Do I have a strategy to reach my dream?
SECURE your dream.
State your position. Where are you right now, what will your dream look like in the future.
Examine all your actions. Do something. Do something today, every day, that relates to your dream tomorrow.
Consider all your options. What must you alter to move forward?
Utilize your resources. What do you have at your disposal right now?
Remove all your nonessentials. What is taking your time not related to reaching your dream?
Embrace your challenges. What problems, obstacles or failures may you face in your dream journey. How can you prepare yourself to meet these challenges. From these write out daily disciplines, monthly goals, a long term plan.
The People Question:
Have I included the people I need to realize my dream? DREAM TEAM members should dare to focus on your significance, not simply on your success. Your dream team will respond to your ideas with respect, not disgust or contempt. Expect the best of you. Affirm your talents and abilities. Maximize learning and growth opportunities to improve the dream and the dreamer.
Your dream team will also take time to give honest feedback. Encourage you unconditionally and nonjudgmentally to help you persevere. They will accept only excellence, since mediocrity kills dreams. And help you make the most of your mistakes and failures. Your dream team will inspire you, be honest with you, have skills that complement you.
The Cost Question:
Am I willing to pay the price for my dream? The dream is free, but the journey isn't. The price must be paid sooner than you think. The price will be higher than you expect. The price must be paid more than once. It is possible to pay too much for your dream.
Three things you must pay to succeed:
Pay the price of dealing with criticism.
Pay the price of overcoming your fears.
Pay the price of hard work.
The bigger the dream the higher the cost. If you are not willing to pay the price, you need to change the dream.
The Tenacity Question:
Am I moving closer to my dream? To achieve a dream it takes the willingness to take one more step, when you are convinced you can't take another step. To nourish your dream you need to keep working, keep striving, keep moving closer to your dream. To do that it is vital to recognize that quitting is more about who you are than where you are. Improve your vocabulary by using "can do" words. Waiting for everything to be right is wrong as conditions will never be perfect. Be committed to action, keep thinking on what more you can accomplish, recognize that the resources for your dream stop the moment you do (vision doesn't follow resources; it's the other way around).
Practice the rule of five which is doing five specific things each day that will move you closer to your dream, and remember when you have exhausted all possibilities, you haven't. Every day keep moving closer to your dream even if just an inch at a time. So change your thinking, change your perspective and change your work habits.
The Fulfillment Question:
Does working toward my dream bring satisfaction? Dreaming is about what you become in the process, so the process is the joy of the dream. Is the process fulfilling and a growing experience for you? Is it fulfilling or frustrating? Fulfillment people understand the difference between the dream and it's realization which is enjoying the journey there. The size of the dream determines the size of the gap of your reality today and the reality of the dream.
Fulfilled people keep dreaming while making the journey, appreciate each step forward in the journey. The power of fulfillment is you make new discoveries while living in the gap as you build a new person. Fulfilled people buy in to the natural law of balance and that life is both good and bad. Love the journey and knowing that no matter what you are living toward your dream.
The Significance Question:
Does my dream benefit others? Change your game plan from success to significance.Your dream is unselfishly living beyond yourself and committing to benefit others. Maxwell concludes with three statements about significance in his own life. "I want to do something significant for myself. I want to do something significant for others. I want to do something significant with others." A dream is not worth it if it doesn't benefit others.
As Florence Littauer said, "dare to dream, prepare to dream, wear the dream, repair the dream, share the dream." At what stage are you now? Surviving, already achieving your dream or striving for significance.
John Maxwell provides more at
http://www.giantimpact.com/
and Thomas Nelson has an interactive companion to Put Your Dream to the Test,
My Dream Map
http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/
In Absolute Surrender, Andrew Murray says that we obtain the full blessing of God by absolute surrender of all into His hands. Here are some power excerpts from the chapter,
"Kept by the Power of God."
"We are kept here on earth by the power of God. There is an inheritance waiting for me in Heaven. God keeps me for the inheritance. He knows you are not able to keep yourself. But God says: “My child, there is no work you are to do, and no business in which you are engaged, and not a cent which you are to spend, but I, your Father, will take that up into my keeping.” God will care for you there. The keeping of God includes all.
What is Almighty God not going to do for the child that trusts Him? The Bible says: “Above all that we can ask or think”. It is Omnipotence you must learn to know and trust, and then you will live as a Christian ought to live. How little we have learned to study God, and to understand that a godly life is a life full of God, a life that loves God and waits on Him, and trusts Him, and allows Him to bless it! We cannot do the will of God except by the power of God. God gives us the first experience of His power to prepare us to long for more, and to come and claim all that He can do. God help us to trust Him every day.
This keeping is not only all-inclusive and omnipotent, but also continuous and unbroken. Our whole spiritual life is to be God’s doing. “It is God that works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.” When once we get faith to expect that from God, God will do all for us. The keeping is to be continuous. Every morning God will meet you as you wake. If you trust your waking to God, God will meet you in the morning as you wake with His divine sunshine and love, and He will give you the consciousness that through the day you have got God to take charge of you continuously with His almighty power. “Lord, I am going to expect Thee to do Thy utmost, and I am going to trust Thee day by day to keep me absolutely,” your faith will grow stronger and stronger, and you will know the keeping power of God in unbrokenness.
This faith means utter impotence and helplessness before God. In most cases it is utter helplessness; another must do it for me. And that is the secret of the spiritual life. It is possible that you might exalt yourself, and therefore I have sent you this trial to keep you weak and humble. It is when we sink down in utter helplessness that the everlasting God will reveal Himself in His power, and that our hearts will learn to trust God alone. But how am I to get that trust?”
“By the death of self. The great hindrance to trust is self-effort. So long as you have got your own wisdom and thoughts and strength, you cannot fully trust God. But when God breaks you down, when everything begins to grow dim before your eyes, and you see that you understand nothing, then God is coming near, and if you will bow down in nothingness and wait upon God, He will become all.” As long as we are something, God cannot be all, and His omnipotence cannot do its full work. That is the beginning of faith... utter despair of self, a ceasing from man and everything on earth, and finding our hope in God alone.
Faith is rest.
Faith has not attained its strength. But when faith in its struggling gets to the end of itself, and just throws itself upon God and rests on Him, then comes joy and victory. When God comes to me with the promise of His keeping, and I have nothing on earth to trust in, I say to God: “Thy word is enough; kept by the power of God.” That is faith, that is rest. It is a great thing when a man comes to rest on God’s almighty power for every moment of his life. It is a great thing in prospect of these to enter into a covenant with the omnipotent Jehovah, not on account of anything that any man says, or of anything that my heart feels, but on the strength of the Word of God:
“Kept by the power of God through faith.”
My God, let my life be a proof of what the omnipotent God can do. Let these be the two dispositions of our souls every day... deep helplessness, and simple, childlike rest. If you want to get into this life of godliness, you must take time to fellowship with God.
Leave your heart, and look into the face of Christ, and listen to what He tells you about how He will keep you. Look up into the face of your loving Father, and take time every day with Him, and begin a new life with the deep emptiness and poverty of a man who has got nothing, and who wants to get everything from Him... with the deep restfulness of a man who rests on the living God, the omnipotent Jehovah ...and try God, and prove Him if He will not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that there shall not be room to receive it.
But in great restfulness place ourselves in His hands. God takes care that it shines upon you. And God will take care that His own divine light shines upon you, and that you shall abide in that light, if you will only trust Him for it. Let us trust God to do that with a great and entire trust.
Here is the omnipotence of God,
and here is faith reaching out to the measure of that omnipotence. Shall we not say: “All that that omnipotence can do, I am going to trust my God for?" Are not the two sides of this heavenly life wonderful? God’s omnipotence covers me, and my will in its littleness rests in that omnipotence, and rejoices in it!
The full text of Absolute Surrender is on line at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/surrender.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has hundreds of the Christian classic authors and their works directly on line.For more check out the Christian Classic Ethereal Library.
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