When Dreams Are Galaxies

I see it in my head. The night sky expands above me. Infinite. Vast. Unknown, yet altogether familiar. Galaxies stretch in dazzling colors. Burning auburns fleck with comets. Hazy pinks and purples crown with stars like diamonds. Thunderous blues and indigoes swirl with inky black dots of constellations in their milky folds. Dreams. If dreams took form—I’m sure they’d look like this.

They are beautiful.

 But they are incomplete.

 Up above me stretch that all too familiar void. The blackest void hangs over the center of my gaze—a blank space surrounded by the other blazing galaxies. Empty. Hallow. Forlorn.

 “When are you going to fill up my space with Galaxies, God?” I ask. “When will you make my dreams come true?”

When the Dreamer Waits

I relate to the first phrase of this verse: Proverbs 13:12 – Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Deferred hopes and unfulfilled dreams.

The heartache of dreaming is an intricate dynamic of wishing, hoping, trusting, facing disappointment, and then picking up the courage to dream and believe again. It hurts. It’s real. The greater the longing, the greater the pain that it inflicts when dreams haven’t come true yet.

Especially when they never come true.

Whether they’re dreams to have a child, dreams to get married, dreams to have a healthy body, dreams to succeed. Whatever dream it is—as it rests in dormancy and blank spaces—it’s easy to be impatient.

It’s easier to be offended when the wait goes on for years, decades, and a lifetime.

But it’s in these desperate moments of longing that God shows himself as the Dream Maker.

And ultimately, the Dream Fulfiller.

What the Dreamer Learns

In my 20-plus years of existence, I’ve seen how God has made some of my biggest dreams come true, but I’m also still waiting for other spectacular dreams to become a reality. There are a lot of stories between my journal pages—a lot of rants, doubts, and disappointments. But in the hardest moments of coming face-to-face with my blank spaces, there are lessons. God reveals Himself and causes mighty paradigm shifts.

 As I wait— as we wait—for our dreams, there are three simple truths we can hold fast to.

1. God Has Bigger Dreams

I’m still staring up at my empty sky, when the Father turns me around, and I see His sky. I see His dreams. I see His galaxy.

And they’re bigger.

Grander.

His galaxy swells, bright pink swirls spinning on the outskirts of golden starry belts. Glinting planets and asteroids crisscross His space.

I once envisioned for myself pretty royal blues and simple cut-out stars. It is nothing compared to the Father’s galaxy.

The dreams I have are bigger than yours.

My plans outweigh yours.

My dreams for you are better than your dreams for yourself.

He isn’t just a God who promised Abraham a son—His plans were to give him a nation, a people as numerous as the stars (Genesis 22:17).

He isn’t just a God who restores broken things—he makes them whole, breathes life into them, and makes them stronger than before (Ezekiel 37:1-14).

He isn’t just a God whose promises are finite to this side of reality – his goodness transcends to eternity (1 John 2:24-25).

It’s comforting, because God understands the tug between longing and having dreams fulfilled. He has dreams and plans for us too! (Ephesians 2:10)

We are finite humans who have not completely grasped an infinite God. When the longing hits, we can dare to believe that the dreams God Himself placed in our hearts will be better than how we envisioned it.

 2. God Is Greater Than the Dreams

Fear lingers and nags. What if my dreams don’t come true? Will I be disappointed with God? Is it safe to believe in Him for the most radical things? Will my heart be able to handle disappointment if God has other plans?

Will my dream be so big that it might crush me?

I’m bigger than your dreams, He says. It hits me like a loving rebuke. His fingers swirl comets, stars, and planets. They fit in His powerful palm.

My fearful thoughts only reveal how much I doubt Him. I feel like Sarah who laughed at the thought of having a son at an old age. She didn’t think God could make her dream come true (Genesis 18:12).

But the King of the Universe is greater than any dream. He can turn it into reality, not just because He is capable of doing so, but because He is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9); He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19); and…

He will never fail. (1 Chronicles 28:20)

Dreaming is an opportunity to trust in God’s character—to trust in His heart for me. The beauty of longing is that it poses a grand opportunity to take the free fall into His arms.

He is the Father who knows how to give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11) and how to satisfy their desires with good things (Psalm 103:5; 1 Timothy 6:17).

His intentions for me will always be good (Romans 8:28).

3. God is the Greatest Dream

Psalm 37:4 – Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

As we delight in Him, He refines our dreams and aligns them to His bigger, more beautiful plans. We begin to start dreaming His dreams, and we begin to have better desires.

Your dreams are small—even for you. They will never satisfy you fully, because at the end of it all, I am the only One who can complete your heart. I’ll always be enough for you.

Perhaps this is the greatest paradigm shift. The psalmist figured it out—our souls were fashioned with a void only its Creator could fill (Psalm 63). He doesn’t want us to settle for a mere dream. He would rather have us pursue Him, the Dream Giver.

God wants us to delight in Him first because anything less can fail us and can never truly satisfy. He understands our true needs, and He is the only One who has the means to meet those needs. He is jealous for the throne of our hearts (Deuteronomy 4:24).

He deserves everything we have (Mark 12:30).

The God of Dreams

If my dreams were stars, God’s dreams would be the whole universe.

After beholding the One who treasures our dreams—as we experience His goodness (Psalm 34:8)—we realize that He is the True Treasure after all.

He isn’t just the God who fulfills dreams.

He is the Greatest Dream.

Nicole Gusto

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Nicole is part-nerd and part-artist. She’s a passionate speech pathologist, writer, dreamer, occasional ventriloquist, and a total geek for stories. She dances through words and writes to speak life to readers. She also regularly blogs at https://nicolegusto.com