Jason Vana: Becoming a Better Man

Finding Value in our Rest →

Rest doesn’t come easy for us.

We’re told to work for what we want.
We’re trained to give our all in everything we do.
We’re taught to pursue our dreams every second of every day.
We’re convinced taking a day off, a week off, a month off will cause us to fall behind.

We have been programmed to see rest in a negative light.

It’s why we struggle to disconnect.
It’s why we work ourselves to exhaustion.
It’s why we take on more projects than we can handle.
It’s why we run through the list of things we should be doing instead of resting.

Rest is for the lazy.

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The Practical Side of Dreaming →

Last week, we looked at pursuing our dreams.

I wrote about how it’s important to take time to dream.
We discussed the act of rediscovering the gifts and passions that form our dream.
We even talked about the time it takes for a dream to form.

We love talking about our dreams.

It’s easy to sit behind a computer screen and write about these big ideals we have for our lives. We like to share our dreams with friends and family and coworkers. We get a sense of satisfaction talking about what we want to do with our lives.

There’s no work involved in sharing a dream.
No risk, either.

But sharing our ideals and thoughts and desires doesn’t bring our dream any closer to reality.

All the encouragement and insight and inspiration in the world won’t write that book, or secure that dream job, or start that nonprofit, or plant that church, or build your own business. Conferences and speakers and blog posts can spark the idea and get you inspired, but they won’t achieve your dream for you.

In order to bring your dream into reality, you have to get practical:

The Practical Side of Dreaming →

Last week, we looked at pursuing our dreams.

I wrote about how it’s important to take time to dream.
We discussed the act of rediscovering the gifts and passions that form our dream.
We even talked about the time it takes for a dream to form.

We love talking about our dreams.

It’s easy to sit behind a computer screen and write about these big ideals we have for our lives. We like to share our dreams with friends and family and coworkers. We get a sense of satisfaction talking about what we want to do with our lives.

There’s no work involved in sharing a dream.
No risk, either.

But sharing our ideals and thoughts and desires doesn’t bring our dream any closer to reality.

All the encouragement and insight and inspiration in the world won’t write that book, or secure that dream job, or start that nonprofit, or plant that church, or build your own business. Conferences and speakers and blog posts can spark the idea and get you inspired, but they won’t achieve your dream for you.

In order to bring your dream into reality, you have to get practical:

Taking Time to Dream →

Every so often, I need a visioning day: a day where I gather others around me and we start visioning and dreaming about the future of Ignite. It’s a day that refreshes me, recharges me and gives me focus for the next few months.

Friday was that day.

I had a Skype call to start planning and throwing out ideas about our Romania 2012 mission trip. I went out for coffee with one of my students and talked about how to improve the Ignite group at Monmouth. I went to dinner with our Student Representative to the Ignite Board, and dreamed about what Ignite could look like 5, 10, even 20 years down the road.

We dreamed about future trips to Romania.
We talked about monthly community service projects.
We thought about training programs, a school of ministry, and mapped out some new resources we hope to have available in the next few months.
We looked over logistics, came up with some strategic plans and set some deadlines to see these dreams become reality.

It was a refreshing day.

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reasonstofeelhappy:

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