Dreams - The engines of love and success

For thousands of years philosophers and poets have agreed that the center of the soul is the heart. We have sayings which reflect this belief like: “____ is at the heart of the matter” or “heart and soul.” Mysteriously the heart takes us on journeys which never entered our minds, as in the example of my childhood crush before. Every culture in the world has identified the heart as being the engine of emotion and feeling. So Christian singles, the question is this, is the heart just an organ to pump blood?

When we are depressed our hearts weaken, at a rock concert our hearts speed up, and love actually strengthens the heart. The heart reacts to different environments and circumstances in very complex ways not completely understood. The heart resonates with the world around us and within us.

The sentience of the heart is attested to everyday. In our language we have sayings like; “He’s heartless, it was a heart felt farewell, the hardness of her heart, lighthearted, downhearted, or heart of stone, and lastly… I was greatly heartened by the Christian dating 101 primer.” to give but a few examples. I cannot prove that the heart has any capacity for thought in the scientifically measurable sense, but I believe that it does, it is only a gut feeling though. To the skeptic I only ask that you indulge me long enough to make my point, and to the rest I assert a known truth.

Christian singles, what does your heart tell you? Are you successful in achieving your dreams?

There are no magic potions or formulas to becoming what you desire. You must - Esto qou audes - Be what you dare.

The mad scientist below has it all wrong, he needs the Christian dating 101 primer.

Christian singles, have you ever read the biography of or seen an interview of a successful person? Have you noticed that many of them describe their success as a dream come true? They may not know the secret to success for others but they just told you in an off handed way what their secret was-they listened to their hearts and followed their dreams. This Christian dating primer will assist you in listening to your heart. When we think of the driven people who have achieved their dreams, most followed the dreams which they deeply yearned for in their hearts. Success did not come overnight, and may have been a struggle but, the road to success was enjoyable.

Think of your favorite athlete, surely success didn’t just fall into their lap. They had a dream and worked with singleness of mind probably for years without giving up. Could they have made it without the dream? Probably not. Dreams are the engines of success.

When ordinary people have a powerful dream and their heart is in it, here is the formula for success. Do you suppose Donald Trump would have been so successful if his heart wasn’t into sales? Or, how about Shaquille O’Neil? What if his heart hadn’t been set on basketball? He may have gotten good under his own power, but not great. Another way of looking at this is that they answered their calling. What is your calling?

Do you shut out your hearts desires? Have you fooled yourself into thinking that you will be just as happy or satisfied doing something other than your hearts calling? If you answered yes then you are in the majority. The Christian dating 101 primer is not meant as a mentor guide to successful living, but I was compelled to speak to this matter since there are many forms of success. Love is one of the weightier issues of life in which most of us long for success. We may also be successful at love and relationships as they function under the same dynamics as personal success. Could you be the Donald Trump of love? Yes, but only if your heart is in it. If your heart is not in it then you will most likely fail and be miserable. Happiness, love, and success will come when you answer the hearts calling and begin the important journey which you were meant for.

Fortunately many of us have multiple callings which the heart may embrace for action. Sometimes your dream may not be practical or doable for limitations of age, eyesight, or other handy cap. I wanted very badly to be a fighter pilot while growing up. I dreamt of the day when I would be flying. We lived near Nellis Air Force Base and I would go watch the planes take off and land. I studied hard in school and joined the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps while in high school. I had done all of the preparing I could and was ready to have a dream come true. But, then in my senior year I learned that my eyesight was not good enough to be a pilot. I lost heart for many years, but fortunately I had another calling which I finally answered after years of self pity and quenching my dreams.

Dear Christian singles, please take a moment to consider your wishes for love, romance, parenthood, and relationships. Don’t be alarmed if you haven’t a dream for all of the above, for everything there is a time and a season. Perhaps you are at the beginning of the list with dreams as yet unfulfilled. The dreams of love and romance are universal to all healthy people of any age group. Our hearts desire romance in spite of age. We love to be wooed.

If we could ask the Donald or Shaq what they would rather be doing they would reply (if they opened up their hearts) that there is nothing else that they would rather do in life. They have the personal satisfaction which only comes with answering their calling. If you are not sure what your calling is whether it is in the realm of the professional or Christian singles romance let us discover what your calling might be.

When you lie down to rest after the day’s toils, demands, and cares does your heart tend to take off on flights of fancy? Do you dream? For most of us the heart usually chooses this time to assert it’s supremacy over the will which silences it during the daylight hours. It is at this time when it is quiet that the heart usually takes chase after it’s deepest and fondest desires. Perhaps your heart pines for unconstrained romantic elation, but your will dismisses such notions as unrealistic or unattainable for some reason. Try as you might to suppress this pining heart it returns night after night in those still moments to take you on it’s forbidden adventure. As the years pass and the will keeps putting down the hearts desires the heart yields and the dreams become more mediocre and will eventually die. Why do we silence the starving heart within us?

Youthful dreams are usually bolder in nature because we have not silenced them and resisted them, everything is still possible to our youthful minds. Time seems to be on our side, and things tend to go our way, but as we get older “reality checks” begin to shape us and our dreams. We (most of us) begin to settle and sacrifice our dreams for far less than we imagined in our youth.

In dreams he often comes to me,

The lad I used to be,

I wonder if he hopes to see,

The man he might have been?

Christian singles, consider for a moment, if you as a child of seven or eight could travel through time, and see yourself as you are today would you find yourself a disappointment? A failure? Sadly, most of us would have to answer yes. What happened to us along the way? The answer is that we gave up on our more noble dreams and let ourselves down, and settled to be less than we were meant to be.

As we have just discussed the intensity and passions of our dreams diminish with each and every passing day that we feel and do not act. The time to act is now! The longer we procrastinate the less likely we will be to act upon our dreams. To quote Screwtape:

”The more often one feels without acting, the less likely he will be ever to act, and in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.”

Dear Christian singles, if it is noble, if it is your calling and your hearts desire, whether it is for romance or personal success answer your heart before the dreams fade away, weakening with every passing moment.

Yes there will be challenges and struggles. A relevant Spanish maxim which goes like this “No hay peor lucha que la que no se hace!” which in English loosely translated means-the greatest struggle is that which is never undertaken! Will you regret what might have been all of your life? Most people at the end of their lives have regrets, they do not typically say “I wish that I had worked more overtime” or “I wish that I had kept up on football more” Usually they regret the lack of close and lasting relationships with friends and family. The second most common regret is choice of profession. Now is the time to act and turn those dreams into reality instead of missed opportunities. I say it again, the time to act is now, for when will you be stronger?

Continue to Part 3 of the Christian Dating 101 Primer