Time To Dream: Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming. – John 14:31 | Part 5

John 14:31 

• “Arise, let us go from here.”

Introduction:

• Although daydreaming is not foreign to most people, there is a sense of urgency to effectively combat it if serious damage is to be forestalled. 
• While medication and psychological therapy might be treated as viable options to deal with excessive daydreaming, it is equally important to resort to divine intervention. 
• It thus becomes quite paramount for a believer to struggle against forces that detract him or her from providing for the family. 
• At an individual level, distinct possibilities of becoming sufferers are real if daydreaming is allowed a free rein in the life of an individual since daydreams can clandestinely and completely take over the mind, almost turning it into a permanent mental state, devoid of meaningful engagement in such productive initiatives as work or life goals. 
• By extension, and from a Christian perspective, daydreaming can seriously stymie prayer life. 
• Daydreaming is an issue to which adequate and reverent attention needs to be given. Indeed, the question does arise: 

Are there effective practical spiritual strategies, perhaps norms, which one can use to wean oneself from the daily habit of daydreaming? 

• At the heart of the daydreaming issue is the challenge of taking action based initiatives. 

Defining Daydreaming:

• Daydreaming can be said to be a spontaneous, imaginative thought pattern that is stimulated by external cues or internal associations to an immediate or recent situation. It is described as a novel and more or less vivid constructive fantasy which might initially be called random or undirected, but is more accurately described as spontaneous, floating, free inspirations. Daydreams are personally significant experiences, which are essential to understanding an individual.

The defining characteristics of daydreams include:

• They are longer and more vivid episodes than normal thoughts.
• They arouse more positive affect in the daydreamer than normal thoughts do.
• Daydreaming is a drifting sequence of semi-imagery unfolding before a subjective viewer for a relatively extended period of time—several minutes to many hours. 
• They are characterized by spontaneous variation in content, occurring non-discursively. 
• Ultimately, daydreaming is a part of the average individual's mental life; studies have shown that up to 47% of a person's waking hours can be lost to daydreaming. 

Nothing wrong with day dreaming:

• Beneficially, daydreaming has been linked to increases in creative thinking, and mind-wandering theories have linked the phenomenon to a decreased working memory capacity.
• In contemporary society around the world, people in all walks of life have accepted daydreaming as a time-honored and blameless sort of pastime. 
• It seems that job and office workers commonly spend office time drifting in thought without any fear of enforcement of in-house law in their work. 
• Most psychologists seem to agree that daydreaming or fantasizing is generally harmless.
• Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. 
• In John 14:31, Jesus Christ said  having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. 
• But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. 

When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. 

But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it.

Practical Strategies for Manifesting Your Daydreams

• Believe it or not, the simple act of prayer or a few minutes of peaceful meditation can turn daydreams into reality.

How? 

• Begin by expressing either silently or aloud the desire as if you have already achieved it. “After my morning walk, I picked up my mail in my driveway where I found an unexpected check for $1,250.00 that I used to catch up on my bills.” It seems a bit awkward at first, but this expression of the wish or desire acts as an Instruction to your subconscious mind to carry out your wishes. 
• Think along the lines of moving from daydream to manifesting. You still have to train and eat right, but in this case also make the “cut.” That’s how one dreamt up the legendary “cut” long before that scene popped up. The late speaker used to talk about not only making money; “You need to build wealth,” he would opine. Or, “I wish for you a fortune. I wish for you a healthy life. 
• A game plan for life—not a wishbone for life.” Here are five strategies to convert your daydreams into reality.

• Define Your Dreams: 

Take a few minutes and brief yourself on what it is you desire for yourself and the people around you. What will it be like when you reach your dreams? Who will you be if you fail to hit your beloved daydreams? 

• Set SMART Goals: 

If you don’t know where you want to go, it really doesn’t matter where you park. A great dream without timelines is not a great dream; it’s a wish. Set a time frame as to when you expect to see or achieve results. You would be hard-pressed to find a high achiever, top producer, or leader who hasn’t had his goals written down and personally reviewed for years. 

3. Pray:

 I heard several people in a row say the following or some variation of the following, “If success is available, it would be a free will kind of thing.” 

4. Motivation and Action: 

If your mountain isn’t reclaimed, take little steps daily. Eat the frog first thing in the day. It doesn’t taste any better if you eat your frog at 2 PM than if you eat your frog first. It is a lot easier to do things you should do than to live with the pain and anguish of not doing it. Every little step in the right direction builds your confidence to take the next step. 

5. Support: 

Surround yourself with winners, like-minded individuals. Set up your environment in an inspiring way—think about creating that warm and inviting “third place.” Make it cool to achieve your dreams and share in the bounty.

What is God expected of us after  giving us a dream?

• God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. 
• His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: “Don’t sit or stand there, just go!”
• If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, “Come aside by yourselves,” then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). 

Final Note:

Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time—you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.t and resist unproductive thoughts