What If the Dreams in Your Heart Aren’t Separate From God’s Will?

I thought putting God first meant being willing to give up what I wanted. But what if I was creating a conflict between God and my dreams that didn’t need to exist?

Robyn Lee

When I was in my 20s, I shared some of my dreams with someone very dear to me.

Their response was, “Make sure you put God first.”

I want to be careful here because I don’t know exactly what they meant by that, and I don’t want to assign an intention to their words that may not have been there.

I only know how the words landed for me.

Somewhere inside, I heard a warning to be careful about how much I wanted this and how far I pursued it. I began to feel as though wanting success too much could somehow mean choosing my dreams over God.

It planted, or maybe reinforced, this idea that there could be a choice between the two.

And that led me to question whether the dreams in my heart were actually what God intended for my life.

What if My Dreams Aren’t God’s Will? 

There’s an internal tension that can happen when you have a dream you really want to pursue, but you also want to put God first.

Excitement about the dream is real and you can imagine what it would feel like to actually do it. You light up when you think about it.

But then there can be other thoughts that creep in like:

What if this isn’t what God wants for me?

Maybe pursuing what I want means I’m going against what God naturally wants for me. Maybe really putting God first means being willing to give this up and trust what God has for my life.

I carried some version of that tension for years without fully realizing how much it was affecting me. It was causing real resistance to taking the, sometimes easy steps, I’d need to take to get closer to my goals.

Without realizing it, I began treating my desires and God’s will as two separate things.

There was what I wanted, and then somewhere over there, was what God wanted.

I hoped they matched, but I couldn’t be sure.

If they didn’t, being faithful seemed to mean choosing God’s desires over mine.

Why I Was Afraid to Fully Pursue My Dreams 

I didn’t completely abandon my dreams, but I didn’t completely give myself permission to pursue them either.

I was almost tiptoeing around them.

Doing a little bit felt safe. I could pursue something to a certain point, but going all-in felt different because then I had to confront the question: Am I doing what God wants, or am I just doing what I want?

As strange as it sounds, I think there was a certain safety in pursuing things I could accomplish on my own – without God’s help.

If I kept the dream small enough, I didn’t need too much faith, trust, or help from God. I could essentially say, I’ve got this part.

I didn’t recognize that as playing small at the time. I was just being really careful I didn’t step on God’s toes.

Then I started to ask a different question:

What if God Is Already in the Desire? 

One of the biggest shifts for me has been understanding God as being within me.

That made me reconsider the way I had been looking at the desires in my heart.

If something in my heart brings me genuine joy, something that makes me feel alive and excited, do I have to automatically distrust it just because I want it? Do I have to start with the assumption that what I want might not be what God wants?

For a long time, I approached the dream almost as though God were standing outside of me with a separate plan, and my job was to figure out what that plan was before I allowed myself to move.

Now I’m beginning from a different place.

Maybe following what’s in my heart, following the things that bring me joy and happiness, is part of how God leads me.

I’m not saying every desire I ever have must automatically be God’s will. What has changed is that I no longer feel like I have to begin by assuming my desires and God are opposed.

I just want to take a moment to make a distinction. There have been plenty of times where I’ve strongly felt I should do things that have me showing up as less than my best self, typically driven by fear and anger. These are not the things I’m talking about.

I believe God is love, compassion, and joy. If I’m feeling these things within my desire, that’s what I want to follow.

That distinction has changed so much for me.

I Can Trust God Without Knowing Where the Dream Leads 

I think part of my old fear came from feeling as though I needed to know where a dream was going before I could fully trust it.

I realized I don’t need that certainty.

I can honor what’s in my heart without controlling exactly how it turns out. Pursuing the dream doesn’t mean I’ve stopped trusting God. The uncertainty actually gives me a place to practice that trust.

I can acknowledge, This is what is in my heart. This is what brings me joy. I’m going to follow it, while trusting God to bring me the dream or something better.

I don’t have to know which one it will be before I move.

What All That Second-Guessing Was Costing Me 

When I was constantly questioning whether what I wanted was aligned with what God wanted, there was so much resistance.

A lot of my energy went into trying to figure everything out before taking the next step. I second-guessed myself and held back, almost crossing my fingers that eventually I would discover what I wanted happened to be what God wanted too.

There isn’t much room for joy when I’m in that place.

Ideas and insights don’t come as naturally because so much of my attention is going toward the internal conflict: Is this okay? Should I want this? Am I getting ahead of God? Am I doing too much?

Something changes for me when I stop treating God and the desire in my heart like opponents.

There’s more room for movement, ideas, and insights. Things begin to feel lighter.

The image that keeps coming to me is a huge slide.

Instead of trying to push and pull and force myself forward, it feels like getting on the slide and allowing myself to go. There’s a flow to it that I couldn’t experience when I was constantly questioning whether I was even supposed to be on the slide in the first place.

How I Trust God to Guide My Dreams 

Maybe the best way I can describe what has changed for me is that I used to think I had to know God’s destination before I could safely start moving.

I felt like I needed to figure out God’s plan first and then make sure my dreams fit inside it.

Now I think about it more like God is the GPS.

I don’t have to see the entire route before I start. I can pay attention to what is already in my heart, follow what brings me joy, and take the next step that feels aligned with that while trusting God to lead me as I go.

Maybe I’ll arrive exactly where I thought I was going, or maybe I’ll be redirected somewhere I couldn’t have imagined. What I think is the dream right now could even turn out to be one part of something better.

I don’t have to know that in advance.

For me, freedom has come from no longer beginning with the question, What if my dream and God’s will are different?

I’m beginning to wonder if a better place to start is:

What if I don’t have to assume they’re opposed?