Chase the Lion: If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You, It's Too Small

by Mark Batterson

You are one idea, one risk, one decision away from a totally different life. Of course, it’ll probably be the toughest decision you ever make, the scariest risk you ever take. But if your dream doesn’t scare you, it’s too small.

In every dream journey there comes a moment when you have to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. You have to go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.

At the end of our lives, our greatest regrets will be the God-ordained opportunities we left on the table, the God-given passions we didn’t pursue, and the God-sized dreams we didn’t go after because we let fear dictate our decisions.

Most people believe God is real, but few people actually live like it. The result is a widening gap between their theology and their reality. They allow their circumstances to get between them and God instead of letting God get between them and their circumstances.

Your greatest legacy isn’t your dream. Your greatest legacy is the next generation of dreamers that your dream inspires—the dreams within a dream.

We start dying the day we stop dreaming. And ironically, we start living the day we discover a dream worth dying for.

I don’t believe in coincidence, not if you are living a Spirit-led life. I believe in Providence. I believe in a sovereign God who is ordering your footsteps, preparing good works in advance, and making all things work together for good. Of course, some things won’t make sense until we cross the space-time continuum and enter eternity. In the meantime don’t worry about meeting the right person. Focus on becoming the right person. If you keep doing the right things day in and day out, God will hold up His end of the bargain!

Your birth date and birthplace were no accident. It was the opening move in a life that is destined to serve God’s eternal plans and purposes. God determined exactly when and where you would be born.6 And He’s ordained every zip code thereafter.

Destiny doesn’t make appointments. It usually shows up at the door unannounced. And it often knocks quietly, so you have to listen carefully.

Every life is defined by decisive moments, and those moments of decision often dictate the course of decades. That shouldn’t make you nervous, not if God is ordering your footsteps. It should fill you with a sense of destiny!

decision. As Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

We fight darkness with light, fear with faith, and hate with hope. And when we do, the gates of hell cannot prevail against us.

If you keep doing the right things day in and day out, look out. Somehow, someway, someday, God is going to show up and show off.

But to achieve the highest level of success in any field, you need a high pain threshold when it comes to failure.

change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. In other words, geography and spirituality are not unrelated. View affects vision. I think that’s why God told Abraham to go outside his tent and look into the night sky.2 Inside the tent an eight-foot ceiling obstructed his vision. Outside the tent, the sky was the limit.

Dreams aren’t just born; they are sometimes born again. Most dreams die not because they’re the wrong dream but because the timing is wrong. We’re not ready for it, or it isn’t ready for us. But what seems like a waiting period is really a grace period. Don’t put a period where God puts a comma. When the time is right, dust off the dream and rededicate it to God.

More often than not, what we perceive as a no is really a not yet.

When we operate in faith, we aren’t risking our reputation. We’re risking God’s reputation! And God can handle Himself just fine, thank you. You may doubt yourself because of your lack of education or lack of experience. But if God has called you, you aren’t really doubting yourself. You’re doubting God. God doesn’t call the qualified. God qualifies the called.

The true measure of a church isn’t the seating capacity of its sanctuary. The true measure of spiritual maturity is sending capacity,

Faith is climbing out on a limb, cutting it off, and watching the tree fall down.

If doubt is putting your circumstances between you and God, faith is putting God between you and your circumstances.

Faith is unlearning your fears until all that’s left is the fear of God. Faith is the wi...

faith is taking the first step before God reveals...

Gratitude is thanking God after He does it. Faith is thanking Go...

The hardest part of any dream journey is the holding pattern. It’s the twenty-five years between God’s promise to Abraham and the birth of Isaac. It’s the thirteen years between Joseph’s dream and his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream. It’s the forty years between Moses’s dream of delivering Israel and the Exodus.

If you succeed at the wrong thing, you’ve failed. If you fail at the right thing, you’ve succeeded.

Just as courage is not the absence of fear, success is not the absence of failure. Failure is a necessary step in every dream journey.

The will of God is not wealth, health, and prosperity. It’s not even winning. The will of God is the glory of God.

Fighters don’t walk away when the going gets tough; they fight to the finish for their convictions. Fighters don’t give up when everyone is against them; they fight against the status quo. And fighters don’t shrink back when the odds are against them; they fight back for what they believe in.

But the old adage is true: it’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

The Enemy comes to steal your joy, kill your dreams, and destroy your life. Jesus came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. Simply put, we were born on a battlefield between good and evil, and we have to choose sides.

No weapon formed against us will prosper.4 If we resist the devil, he will flee from us.5 And if God is for us, who can be against us?6 The Bible says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion. The key word is like. He’s a poser, and his bark is worse than his bite. Refuse to believe his lies or to cower to his intimidation. When he reminds you of your past, remind him of his future! Fight back with words of faith. Fight back with songs of praise.

Faith isn’t logical or illogical; it’s theological. Faith isn’t prudent or imprudent; it’s valiant.

Noah looked foolish building an ark in the desert. Sarah looked foolish buying maternity clothes at age ninety. David looked foolish attacking Goliath with a slingshot. Benaiah looked foolish chasing a lion. The wise men looked foolish following a star. Peter looked foolish stepping out of the boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. And Jesus looked foolish hanging half-naked on the cross. But that’s faith. Faith is the willingness to look foolish. And the results speak for themselves. Noah survived the Great Flood. Sarah gave birth to Isaac. David defeated Goliath. Benaiah killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day. The wise men found the Messiah. Peter walked on water. And Jesus rose from the dead. You know why some of us have never killed a giant, chased a lion, or walked on water? We’re afraid of looking foolish. But it’s the fear of looking foolish that is foolish!

Don’t accumulate possessions; accumulate experiences.

The sad reality is that most people spend their lives accumulating the wrong things. Instead of accumulating experiences, they accumulate possessions. And when that’s your objective, you end up possessed by your possessions. You don’t own them; they own you.

The day you stop dreaming is the day you start dying. The day you start dreaming is the day you really start living.

God is in the business of helping us overcome our fears, but He often does it by bringing us face to face with our worst fears. He graciously brings us back to the place of failure, and then He not only helps us pick up the broken pieces but He also puts them back together again.

Jesus also said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”7 Gates are defensive measures. In other words, we’re called to play offense. Faithfulness isn’t holding down the fort until Jesus returns. Faithfulness is taking back enemy territory by shining light in dark places.

Our dreams are more interconnected with one another than any of us could ever imagine, and the best way to fulfill your dream is to help others fulfill theirs.

God-given dreams are more about others than they are about you. Selfish dreams always short-circuit, but dreams that involve and excite everyone else have a long tail.

There is a fine line between “Thy kingdom come” and “my kingdom come.”

A genealogy is a storyline. And the names listed are the cast of characters. In the case of Jesus, there is one plot twist that hyperlinks with 2 Samuel 23: “Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah.”10 You probably know the storyline but perhaps not the subplot. David committed adultery with Bathsheba. Then he tried to cover it up by having Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed. You might assume that Uriah was a random soldier in David’s army, but he was actually one of David’s mighty men. The last name listed in 2 Samuel 23 is Uriah the Hittite. So David used the crown that Uriah helped him secure to betray his marriage and plot against his life. As messed up as those circumstances were, God still begat the Messiah. Even in the midst of heartbreak, God still begets miracles! And it’s not the first or last time. Remember Rahab? That one act of kindness generated a ripple effect that resulted in your salvation!