If God has given you a promise, a deep desire, a dream…don’t let anyone laugh at it or kill it.

That includes you!

When we’re waiting for something to come to pass it’s easy to start second guessing our own dream. Is this really from God? Am I just full of it? Did I make that up?

When I’m asking myself those questions I know I need to continually surrender that dream, that hope, that desire to God and let Him work in His timing.

If He’s given you a promise it will come to pass.

And just as I was reminded from Jeremiah 29 recently, God is specific in His timing.

In Jeremiah 29 God has the prophet send a letter to the Israelites who were exiles in Babylon. The Israelites were there of their own doing, from failing to change their lives after many warnings from God. And they would remain in exile for 70 years. God tells them that up front.

All the Israelites wanted was to go back to their homeland. But for 70 years they would be waiting to return.

Waiting.

And yet in the midst of their waiting God doesn’t tell them to just sit around and mope, lost in a dream of the future.

No, He tells them to live their lives!

“This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God, to all the exiles I’ve taken from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and make yourselves at home. Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country. Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you’ll thrive in that country and not waste away. Make yourselves at home there and work for the country’s welfare.” (Jeremiah 29: 4-7, MSG)

God also reminds them that He has a specific timing in bringing them back to the place they long to return to.

“As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” (Jeremiah 29: 10-11, MSG)

So, while the Israelites are waiting for that specific word of God to take place they are also living in the present.

Getting married. Building homes. Raising kids. Working. Worshiping God.

Sometimes when God plants a dream in our hearts, or gives us a specific promise of what is to come, we can get tired in waiting for it to come to pass. But be encouraged today that God knows the desires of your heart.

And even better, He knows the plans He has for you.

They’re good plans. Plans of hope and a future. Also know that when God wants to open a door He’ll do it in the best possible timing. Though the completion of the promise lingers…wait for it.

Like Sarah and Abraham had to wait for God’s promised child. Like Joseph had to wait for the prophetic dream God gave him to be proved true. Like Ruth had to wait for a new husband and a new life.

They all lived in the “now” as they waited. And they surely weren’t disappointed.

That seed that God has planted may seem dead and buried in the ground. But often when you least expect it, He’ll bring it bursting through the dirt with a little green sprout at just the right time.