After college, my friend Erica and I decided we wanted to move to California. I have always been a California girl at heart, and moving to California and living only a couple blocks from the beach was a dream come true. I worked in Newport Beach, and would watch the sun rise in the east, and set over Catalina Island as I drove PCH to and from work each day. And when we weren’t at work, we were at the beach watching the surfers.
The summer before we moved we went out for a month to begin to build a life there.
I actually had to go out again a few months before my move to find an apartment, but when I actually moved there were still a bunch of things that I needed to put into place as I built my new life. I left for California without having a job secured, I needed a car (and I ended up with my “dream car” at the time… a navy car with leather seats and a fin, what any normal person would call a “spoiler”), and I needed to furnish my apartment. And eventually I fulfilled another California dream, by getting a chiuaua!
When I first moved there, I lived with a guy that I had met on our month long stay. His name was Nick, and we had many laughs over the fact that this was when Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were married, and had that show “Newleyweds: Nick and Jessica”. We were strictly friends, and I dated his brother. I will always remember that his mom told him that he had to let me decide on the the apartment decor, because I was the woman and that he had to accept however I chose to decorate or “build the home”.
I remember really enjoying deciding how to make our apartment a home, and thankfully he never complained about the sheer curtains that had pink roses on them that made our dining room look just lovely!
That wasn’t the last time that I got to build a home by shopping for ways to furnish it. One of the last things that I bought for the house my husband and I live in now was a picture that hangs over our couch that says Be still, and know that I am God.
So many women I know (not all but a lot) love building a home and decorating it. And it is interesting when you dive into how God created a women…
When God created Adam, He molded him as a potter would mold clay. But when God created Eve, He fashioned her, or built her. The word used for fashioned in Hebrew is banah, which translates to build, build up, rebuild, repair, cause to continue, set up, establishing, or construction of something. It holds a strong connection with architecture. Many times in the Old Testament it is used to refer to the construction of a palace or a temple, but other times it is referring to the building of an altar.
Beautiful one, if we were built, we were also then created to build. I don’t believe that God fashioned women over night. I believe it took time, love, and care to create her. The type of time, love, and care that we as women would put into our dreams, lives, and whatever in our lives we are building.
What are your dreams? What are you building?
Banah is also the word used when King Solomon built a temple for the glory of God that took 7 years to construct. He built the temple that his father, King David, wanted to. However, Solomon received that priviledge. After he built the temple, following the instructions of the Lord, he gathered all of Israel together to conscecrate the temple to God. When he begins praying in 1 King 8:22 he is standing before the altar. His prayer is heartfelt, he lays all of his requests on the altar before the Lord, and somewhere in the middle of this prayer he ends up on his knees because in verse 54 it says that he finished his offering of prayer and arose before the altar where he had knelt.
What this change in posture says is that everything that was built was for Him, that it was His. King Solomon’s change in posture shows his heart’s desire to submit his dreams and desires to build His Kingdom to the King of Kings.
I was laying in bed in the middle of the night a month so ago. I had woken up because I had a dream that my friend was continuing to struggle with something. It was a dream that was true, and a dream that I had more times than I can count over the course of knowing her. And the dreams have always sent me to prayer, usually laying in bed but sometimes when I wake up the next morning. When I woke up from this dream I knew I had to pray. But as I was praying I felt like God said Get on your knees and pray. Now it was the middle of the night, I was comfortable in my bed, I did not want to get on my knees. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to.
So I did. And instead of praying for God to heal her struggles, I asked Him why she needed to walk through what she was enduring. And He said, so she can know that I am God.
And isn’t that what Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane? He fell on His face, and sumbitted to the will of His Father. I can only imagine the anguish He had as He was enduring this. He knew it would be painful, He knew it would be hard, He knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. But He gave up control, and submitted to His purpose of horrific death but then the beautiful resurrection. And in His resurrection proved what so few knew. That He was God.
When I was building a life in California, I definitely didn’t get on my knees and offer the life I was living to His glory. I was living my California dream, but seeking the dream He would have for my life was the farthest thing from my mind.
However, now my husband and I pray that God uses not just our home, but our lives for His glory. The night we got married, we stood outside and he prayed for the home that we would build together, and that God would use it for His glory. I remember him telling me of times he had been on his knees, and there have been times that I have been on mine.
What dreams is God building in your life, or what has He recently built? A home? A career? A new ministry? A family?
Have you gotten on your knees for it? Have you been on your face crying out to God (maybe even in the pain), not for what you want, but submitting your dreams and what you are building to the will of the King of Kings? Because it is that will that won’t bring the destruction that we can sometimes feel, but the beauty of resurrection.
But why submit? Why get on your knees? The answer is as simple as it is complex. So that you can know that He is God.
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