Throwing My Dream in the River

New Year’s Day is a time for resolutions. We commit to exercise more, eat less, get out of debt, spend more time with family, and the list goes on.

I suspect each of us also has a dream that we cannot do much about – reconciling a relationship, seeing a loved one come to the Lord, getting married, or hearing the “All’s clear” from the doctor.

We reflect on 2010 with a little sorrow. Will God ever answer our prayer? Do we have any hope for 2011?

Then I remember Jeremiah. His people, the Israelites, were captives in Babylon. It looked like there was no hope, but God promised an end. Jeremiah wrote down God’s promise of the destruction of Babylon and gave the scroll to Seraiah.

“And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, ‘When you arrive in Babylon and see it, and read all these words, then you shall say, ‘O LORD, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that none shall remain in it...’ Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates. Then you shall say, ‘Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise…’” Jeremiah 51:61-64 NKJV.

Was it hard for Seraiah to throw God’s promise in the river? I would want to keep it, hold it, read it everyday. But God said to throw it in the river, let go of the dream, and wait for God to fulfill it in His own time.

This New Year’s Day I will throw my dream in the river one more time. I cannot make it come to pass, but God promises He will. I rest in that promise.