Find Meaning in Life through an Impossible Dream

By Dr. Russ,

If the impossible dream is the seed of an optimistic moment, how do you cultivate it so that it grows and bears fruit?

Cultivating the seed with White Nile Optimism

Any farmer will tell you that cultivation requires stamina to stay the course during the growing season, to deal with long days of planting, storms, droughts and floods, pestilence, weeds, disease, long days of harvesting, and economic up and down turns. 

How does the farmer maintain optimism in the face of so many possible problems that occur day after day, and year after year after year?  We argue that it is only possible with a strong “Spiritual Mindset” that flows through the farmer like the White Nile feeds the Nile to keep it flowing at a steady state year round.

Here is another reason to look to your spiritual side for Optimism Stamina.

▪    Sometimes the pressures of your daily struggles can push your belief system beneath the surface.  Immediate pain and struggle can color the lens through which we all view all of God’s past, present, and future activities in our lives.  We can easily lose track of the truth.  And in that kind of emotional haze it doesn’t take long for us to start thinking that the goodness of God is a lie.  (Furtick)

White Nile Spiritual Tips for Optimism Stamina

Reality – The circumstances and problems that God gives us to overcome and solve.  He knows the closer you get to him to seek His help, the more your will learn and master to solve these problems.

More Reality – We only become REAL like the Rabbit and Skin Horse when someone really loves us, and when we accept God’s unconditional love for our imperfect selves, we have a store of love inside us that is the source of infinite optimism stamina.

▪    Romans 8:28 says: We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

 According to Steven Furtick:

▪    “Until you believe God is with and for you, fear and hesitation will characterize your life.” And, we say you will NOT have the stamina to remain in the 90%-plus optimism zone.

Belief  – According to Steven Furtick all you need to believe is that God is good and God is great to have optimism get to and remain in the 90%-plus optimism zone.  God is good means he loves us unconditionally.  God is great means he is the one who created the universe out of nothing with the snap of His fingers.  According to Furtick, if you do not believe that God has the kind of power to part the Red Sea, drop bread from heaven, and miraculously heal the ill, then you cannot have the kind of “audacious faith” necessary to have a constant and steady state of optimism stamina.

Truth –   “True faith is founded on what you believe about God and what He is capable of” because whatever He is capable of you are capable of if you allow Him to work here on earth through you. Are you beginning to see how White Nile Spiritual, Optimism Stamina works inside you as a constant and steady source of the positive view?

Trust  – If we believe in the truth of God then we can take risks for Him, including the risk that he will NOT answer our impossible dream prayer.  What do we risk by praying for the impossible?  Quite frankly, we risk undermining our faith if we come to think our prayer wasn’t answered, or we risk diminishing our belief in how good or great God is.  “Trust in God’ is essential to any sense of “Optimistic Stamina.”

Choice – We have a choice everyday to believe in the truth and trust of God.  Optimism stamina comes from never wavering in your belief in God’s truth and trust given to us freely through grace.  Of course we could choose to believe that God has abandoned us or has bad intentions.  In that case we would choose to stay away from God, which many do.  Make a choice to give God the opportunity to work through you and watch your optimism stamina grow astronomically.

Wisdom – The more we seek to understand God’s perfect nature and His purpose in the world, the more meaning our lives will have.  

Meaning – White Nile spiritual optimism comes from carrying out our vision of God’s purpose for us. If there is no limit to what God can do then there is also no limit to what we can dream and pray or accomplish in his service.  When we are acting for the glory of God, God responds because he wants to demonstrate His glory not only to us, but to those around us.  So He loves to accomplish the impossible on our behalf. Our life then takes on meaning with unlimited stamina held up by seeing the impact we can have on the world by accomplishing impossible, optimistic goals for His glory.  When we finally realize that God’s greatness is meant to work in our lives for our good, but not necessarily monetary good, we grasp on to an infinite source of optimism stamina.

{A key reference and idea source for this post was the book: Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, Multnomah Books, 2011).

Impossible Circumstances Call for Prayer and the Impossible Dream of Optimism

I'm currently facing my own impossible dream circumstance, and I've been praying non-stop for God to grant me the wisdom and tools in order to make the impossible possible....all to the glory of God! I thought this would be a great re-post as it was something I was re-reading, myself! -Jackie Monroe

By Dr. Russ

Do you believe in making the impossible possible?  If you don’t, then stop counting yourself among the optimists of the world. 

Who would have believed that four years ago Amanda Knox, who had just been convicted of murdering her roommate in Italy, would be acquitted of the charges yesterday.  We think of America as a place for justice and we know how hard such a judicial reversal would be here, and I know I believe it must be even harder in a country like Italy.

If you look around you, I believe that everyday you will find something positive about which can be said: “I never thought that could happen or be possible.” A football team comes from behind scoring six touchdowns in the last quarter, or a good friend of yours finally lands a dream job.  A handicapped kid makes a difference in someone’s life.

How do we make the impossible come true? It starts with prayer.  In his book, Sun Stand Still, Steve Furtick asks us to embrace “audacious faith” and pray for the impossible.  According to Furtick, God wants us to pray for the impossible, because when He answers a request for the impossible He is glorified and He looks good; believers become stronger in their belief and non-believers come into the fold.  But, even Furtick says that no matter how much we believe, there will come a time when our faith will be challenged.

When I was 15 and my mother was dying of Cancer, she came to me and told me the story of how she had had her faith challenged, even lost faith for much of her life.  She told me that when she was 12 and her mother was dying of Cancer, she was told by the adults around her to pray and her mother would live.  Well her mother didn’t live. My mother wanted me to know how much that shook her belief in God for much of her adult life.  She did not want me to lose faith upon her death.

As Furtick says, sometimes you pray your best, most honest heartfelt prayers – there is no answer, the answer is NO, despite pure motives and good alignment with your best estimate of God’s purpose for your life – the breakthrough does not come.  The Cancer spreads, you are still unemployed, marital problems worsen, the crisis is unresolved.

What is the role of crisis in our lives?

Every prayer for the impossible is born of some crisis, some problem that seems insurmountable.  According to Furtick:

• Theologically speaking . . . most of the major opportunities recorded in the Bible were born in crisis . . . the greatest opportunities in out lives come out of crisis too.  

• God does not take away our adversity – he develops our faith and demonstrates his strength by working though our adversity. 

That’s right. He wants to teach and help us learn how and that we can overcome the adversity, no matter how intimidating.

So what do we do when a prayer is not answered the way we think it should be:

1. We realize that God is giving us an even greater crisis and hence greater opportunity to serve and reveal His glory.  So keep on praying and trying.
2. We need to keep on praying for the impossible even if it takes 40 years or 40 generations of prayer passed on from one generation to the next. 
3. Realize that the greater the crisis – the greater the revelation when it is resolved.
4. It took 100 plus years of audacious faith and prayer after the Civil War before Martin Luther King Junior led his successful march for freedom to the edge of the Promised Land in the 1960’s and another 40 before America elected an African American President.
5. None of the audacious prayers prayed in the 145 years between 1863 and 2008 – between emancipation proclamation and Obama’s election – were in vain or for naught. All politics aside – I’m talking about achieving the goal of freedom and equality for all.

If you aren't praying for the impossible, you need to start NOW!  Just making the prayer will improve your positive viewpoint.  Then, get started on helping God make the prayer come true.  Remember God took the Israelites to the Promised Land, but they had to follow Joshua into battle after battle to win it.  MLK took his followers to the edge of the Promised Land only after they endured beatings, jailings, dog bites, and fire hosings. 

{Key reference: Sun Stand Still, by Steven Furtick} 

Famous People who Dreamed the Impossible Dream and Made it Come True

By Dr. Russ

In yesterday’s blog post, I identified 10 general tips to make your impossible dreams come true.  In today’s post I provide examples of famous impossible dreamers who clearly exemplify how to put each general tip for living the impossible dream into action, right now.

1. Before Michelangelo could make the impossible possible in his painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he had to see the unseen as a visualization in his mind.  No one else saw this impossible dream until it was finished in 1512.
2. At first Martin Luther King, Jr. was the only dreamer who believed the unbelievable, that racial equality was possible in America. Eventually, through his dynamic leadership, his work result in hundreds of thousands of black and white individuals sharing his impossible dream of equality for blacks in America.
3. Landing a man on the moon was considered impossible, until President Jack Kennedy proclaimed his belief in the possibility in 1961 that before the end of the decade America would land a man on the moon and bring him home.  The reality of that impossible dream was made to happen in the summer of 1969.
4. B.F. Goodrich was the known as the “fool” of Akron Ohio, until he made good on his impossible dream and discovered how to vulcanize rubber. Then the Akron residents, the disbelieving fools, fell into line behind him as his employees in the Akron tire industry.
5. B.F. Goodrich had the last laugh all the way to bank as he became a millionaire and those who had been laughing at him became his minimum wage employees making tires out of rubber.
6. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s hope and impossible dream for the “Promised Land” of equality for blacks in America only came with the many sacrifices of those willing to get back up time after time as they were hosed by fire hoses, bitten by guard dogs, hit in the head with “Billy Clubs,” and thrown in jail with common criminals.
7. The Chilean Miners did not control the fact that they were trapped over 2000 feet below ground, but they did control the effort they put forth to save themselves while underground and help with the rescue effort.
8. South Korean grandmother Cha-sa-soon did not fail to get her driver’s license even though she failed the drivers’s license written exam 959 times.  She passed on the 960^th trial.
9. Early in the Book of Acts, we see Peter and the other disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, on a mission for God to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, live the impossible dream of speaking all the different native tongues, foreign languages, fluently.  God enabled these ordinary men, who never had a foreign language course in their lives, to be fluent in the languages of the Jerusalem crowd to whom they were speaking.
10. When the crowds heard these men speaking the language they were amazed and awed at the poser of God.  Three thousand became followers of Jesus and the disciples in a single day.

Take Control of Your Impossible Dream with these Ten Tips

By Dr. Russ

Why do we doubt the impossible dream?  We doubt it because it:

1. Is unseen;
2. Is unbelievable;
3. Appears foolish;
4. Requires sacrifice and hard work;
5. Could result in failure.

How do we overcome these five causes of doubt, because if we do not we cut ourselves off from the anchor and cornerstone of optimism?  How do we believe in the impossible dream so we can be free to pursue it?  Use these ten tips to take control of your impossible dream.

1. We may not be able to see the dream until it comes true, but we can imagine and visualize it in our minds.  
2. What we believe rests within our minds.  We have control over our thoughts.  It only takes one person to believe in something to make it happen
3. Until one person does believe in the possibility of something, the impossibility will remain.
4. The only fool is the one who is left behind when progress towards the impossible is made.
5. It takes a fool to dream the impossible, but the only one’s laughing at the end are those who took the risk to pursue the impossible and made it happen.
6. Impossible dreams are not handed out on silver platters, their accomplishment always involves self-sacrifice and hard work.
7. Whether or not to make the sacrifice or do the hard work are totally within our control.
8. Failure is not possible because the impossible dreamer keeps learning from his mistakes and makes progress little by little.
9. When we make our impossible dream a mission for God, and pray for it with abandon, we enlist God’s help and all of His power on heaven and earth.
10. We may not be in ultimate control over whether or not the impossible dream is shown to be possible, but we do control what we pray for, and God loves to answer prayers to make the impossible possible because when He does, we become closer to Him, and as others witness God’s power to make
    • the unseen seen,
    • the unbelievable believable,
    • the foolish wise,
    • us find the power and resources within to overcome unimaginable obstacles with effort, and
    • failure an impossibility, they too move closer to and follow Him.

What's Keeping you from Pursuing Your Impossible Dream?

Yesterday was Easter, and the Christian world celebrated the most incredible "impossible dream" ever to have occurred in the history of humankind - The Resurrection of Jesus.  Easter is a time to rekindle your  optimism about pursuing the impossible dream.  When He rose from the dead, He showed the world that anything is possible through Him.

Charlotte Brown is a blind teenager who has set records in the pole vault and participates in a variety of track and field events.  Click on the video below to see her story.

This video clip should inspire you with enough optimism to pursue your impossible dream.