I envision a world where we prepare for our most audacious dream.
Tuesday, 2:22 p.m. It’s a broad daylight and I am sitting at home, praying, reading the Bible, writing, and preparing. What am I preparing for? I can only imagine.
Perhaps God is preparing me to be a professor. I’ve wanted to be a professor since I was in college. There was a professor that I especially admired. Was it her look, her small Asian body commanding so much attention in the lecture hall? Was it her silver hair brushing on her shoulders as I sat listening and watching? Funny how I don’t remember the name of the course or even her name but I just remember her. I remember thinking how I would like to do that someday. From the inception of my career as a lawyer, I always thought that, after 10 years of lawyering, then something in the middle, and the final act of my life would be teaching. Is God preparing me today to teach?
I know that God has said my law practice “will not end in death!” Remember the story of Lazarus when Jesus Christ said this sickness will not end in death? Yes, my law practice was sick, and it’s been dead for a few years rotting with bad odor, but I believed that, thus says the Lord, “Law Offices of Jeannie Joung shall live!” I believe it’ll rise again for His glory. Is God preparing me today to run an expansive law practice and impact the community around it?
“I envision a world” was created to give a voice to the people around us. I mean, people like me, not celebrities or politicians or some famous people. It’s for the moms like me, working women, children around us, people feeling irrelevant and obscure. It is to give them a platform to share their visions, dreams, and ideas. It is a forum to testify to the promise that, our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young men will see visions, and our old men will dream dreams. Is God preparing me today for this task?
I think I’ve shared with you that I have said, “I will move the masses.” I imagined myself standing on a stage speaking to a huge audience. Would that ever come to pass? Is this something that I can still dare to dream about? What if I was standing on a stage now? What would I say? Let’s listen as I walk onto the stage..
“Good morning. Thank you again for inviting me here this morning. Also, I want give thanks to the most important person in my life. Please bow your head with me as I thank God who brought me here today. Father, thank you. That’s all I can say. Thank you for being who you are, for making me who I am. Thank you for bringing me here. Let your light shine through me. My prayer is that I would disappear as the light of our Lord Jesus Christ shines through me. Speak the words you want me to speak. Use me as your vessel today. Thank you. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
My topic today is, “Inspiration. To inspire: what and who inspires us. To get some inspiration for this talk, I decided to look up the etymology of the word and found interesting things. Apparently, the word, “inspiration” means “immediate influence of God or a god. From Latin, inspirare means to “blow into, breath upon, to breathe. This word is used in Genesis when God created Adam: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. The sense of the word is to “breathe into” to “infuse animation or influence to affect, rouse, guide or control, especially by divine influence. In Middle English, it was used to mean “breath or put life or spirit into the human body; impart reason to a human soul. In literal sense “act of inhaling” meaning “one who inspires others.”
Wow! Apparently, “to inspire” isn’t something a mere human can do. God has to literally breathe upon us to give us inspiration. So then, I realized I can’t even speak on this topic. The inspiration has to come from God. Literally the word inspiration is a breath of God to impart life. I can’t do this. So, I looked to the only source I can receive inspiration. The Word of God. As I said earlier, in Genesis 2:7, it says:
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
God’s breath inspired the man to become a living being. To put it differently, the man became alive because of God’s inspiration. Isn’t this in perfect harmony with the Gospel of Christ? Jesus gave up his breath for us, so that we would have life. God came down to inspire us to live, to truly live. God breathed upon us, you and me, and we became alive.
Then, our life through God, the life that we live through Jesus, is or should be the inspiration itself. We are the inspiration of God. Every one of us is a new creation in Christ and when we live our new life, that’s when we become an inspiration to others. That’s why we get inspired when we hear about someone’s vast transformation after meeting Christ. The transformation may not always be quick and some aspects of transformation are painstakingly slower than others but nonetheless, the transformation into a new creation, a new life takes place. That’s why personal transformational stories are so powerful and so inspiring.
Your life is a story, a novel full of mysteries, romance, miracles, thrilling adventures, all the vicissitude of daily living. It is a story of transformation that takes place when you truly begin to live. That’s why your life is an inspiration to me and to others. Jesus is the author of your life and through Him, your life’s story takes place. What kind of a story do you want Jesus to write in your book of life? Are you doing everything on your part to make it happen? Would your story inspire your readers?
As I imagine myself giving this message to a massive audience, I wonder, is God preparing me today for this audacious dream? Regardless, something tells me it really doesn’t matter what’s in store for me ahead. I know that Jesus is the greatest author, the bestselling author of all times. I trust that he will create an incredible story in the book called, The Audacious Life of Jeannie Joung. All I have to do is faithfully prepare for the character that he wants me to play. Do you know which character you are called to be in your book? Are you playing the character now? If not, what are you doing to prepare for it? Are you preparing for your dreams?
Envision a world where you prepare for your most audacious dream.