The Dream-Seed

by Mandy Adendorff

I immigrated to the USA from South Africa holding on to a promise that I believed God had given me; for my parents to somehow come and live in the USA. The situation was so impossible that I didn't share my dream with most people, as I knew it seemed audacious.

My parents were on their own, growing old with no family. It was tough. Years passed and during these times God gave me a promise from Psalm 126:1-2;

"When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,

we were like men who dreamed.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

"The LORD has done great things for them."

Yes, we were like men who dreamed now, but when I read these verses I knew that someday we would live the dream. 

After about eight long years of waiting to see this promise fulfilled. I heard God ask me to stop grieving over my family, receive Him as my family, and lay my dream down. That was a bittersweet day.

Something powerful but unbeknownst to me happened the day when I laid my dream down: My dream became like seed that I planted in heaven and about a year later my dream which I had given back to God was fulfilled on earth, this time not in the form of a dream, but in flesh and blood as God providentially brought my parents to live in the USA.

If I were to detail every account of how God brought my parents to the USA it would

take too long. There were times when I had to shut my mind to the barrage of negative thinking and doubt. It is not easy to keep believing when the answers take years and there is to be no plan B. I had to learn to focus my mind on my God and His plan. The promise of Psalm 26 finally became our reality; our mouths were filled with laughter and we were like men who dreamed. Friends and acquaintances did watch in awe as God did great things for us!

Our dreams may be a reflection of God's purpose for our lives. In this case, it is God who plants these dreams inside us like seed. He gave Abraham the seed dream to be a father. Though Abraham had a heaven breathed dream brewing on the inside of him, he had to navigate this dream in rhythm with God's heart and timing.

God asked Abraham to lay down his son, his dream in the flesh. When Abraham did this, God gave him back but now he would not only be the father to Isaac but to nations. This was God's original intention when He planted the seed dream in Abraham.

Stories like these reveal that these God-given dreams cannot be fulfilled on our own. When we commit them into his keeping, our trust in him is strengthened and we witness his abundant grace. Remember how Jesus performed the miracle of the five loaves and fishes? He received the meager offering, blessed it and provided the crowd with an overflowing abundance of food.

This is not a call for us to give up on our dreams - to the contrary; it is an invitation for us to come into a deeper partnership with God for his ultimate purposes for our lives.

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Mandy Adendorff is an award-winning artist and an itinerant preacher; she began her walk of faith after having a secret encounter with Messiah as a Jewish teenager. In 1993, Mandy began a makeshift ministry combining her live art and speaking ministry to reach broken youth of South Africa. It has been more than twenty years and Mandy is still reaching people in Africa and the USA. Mandy and her husband Stuart have two adult daughters and live in beautiful New England, USA, where Mandy's ministry and art studio is based.

To view her gallery, go to www.mandyadendorff.com.Mandy's latest book God Magnet is now available.

Order the hardcopy at www.godmagnet.com.

Ebook versions are available for the Kindle and the Nook.