It’s Time to Dream Again

By Neil Acheampong

IT’S TIME TO DREAM AGAIN is a principled-based book meant to help you learn the principles of dreaming again. Sometimes in life we reach a level where we lose our desire for a better life. We decide not to dream again because some things are not going well no matter what we do. This book utilizes time-proven principles to infuse you with a desire to dream again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483589350

Book preview

Cited

The genesis of It’s Time to Dream Again began with my regular practice of reading the scriptures every year. During one of my readings, the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis 15:1-6 in the biblical text caught my attention and I could not let some of the things I was finding go without further inquiry. Genesis 15:1-6, reads as follows:

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

2 But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?

3 Then Abram said, Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!

4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. 5 Then, He brought him outside and said, Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. And He said to him, So shall your descendants be. 6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:1-6, New King James Version).¹

From the text, I realized that Abraham had reached a level where there was a change in his desire to be the father of many nations, which was an earlier dream God had deposited into his heart. He tells God that it looks as if this dream is over because the only one he could see was his servant, Eliezer of Damascus, who was not even his own biological child. God helped Abraham to dream again by bringing him out of his tent (where Abraham was when he was talking to God) into the open, and God tells him to count the stars. Interestingly, I realized that Abraham was seeing only Eliezer of Damascus. God had to change what he was seeing by telling him to visualize on the canvas of his imagination the face of a child on every star he was counting. After that exercise, God said to Abraham, …so shall your seed be Genesis 15:5. It then occurred to me that God was working on Abraham’s imagination because that was critical to dreaming. This principle was also confirmed by another story in the bible book of Genesis 11:3-6. Here we read about the time when all the people on the face of the earth had one language and were building a tower together. We are told in the story that God came down to see what they were doing and the divine intent was to stop the work because God’s original command was to inhabit the whole earth and not just an area. God confused their language but He did not touch their imagination. The startling thing about this is that before God confused their language He made a profound statement in Genesis 11:6, And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined doing.² These findings and a few others had led me to believe that the human imagination is important if we will aspire to anything and work towards it. This is what set me on the quest to investigate the human imagination and its ability to help us dream. My findings and experiences are documented in this book to help you, the reader, to understand this principle of dreaming again using the human imagination.

The purpose of this book is to show how our human imagination is often linked to our desires and our desires are the catalyst for pursuing anything in life. It’s Time to Dream Again was written to help you understand the human imagination and its effect on our dreams. The book will limit the use of the term dream because the term dream is broad in its definition. For the purpose of this work, the term dream encompasses such things as our desires, our aspirations, and our future expectations for a better life. This means that this book will exclude in its discussion dream as a series of thoughts, images, and sensations that occur in a person’s mind while he or she is asleep. Most of the use of the word dream will be conceptual in nature and not necessarily visual. However, being able to visualize something will be used exclusively when we are dealing with our imagination and its ability to picture things that are non-existent.

The scope of this work will include such things as the different types of dreams and how they are initiated. A God initiated dream will also be a focus of discussion because dreams initiated by God are bound to happen. The process of dreaming and nurturing our dreams will also be discussed. The concluding section will be devoted to the ultimate dream realization or fulfillment.

It is very easy to give up on your dreams because of the incessant nature of the obstacles we face daily. As a pastor and counselor, I have observed many people give up on their dreams because of one problem or the other. The complex nature of life battles that people face alone make them feel some of their longings are far-fetched. There are those who have given up on their dreams because they have tried and tried many things and nothing seems to work, even though they believe their dreams are worthwhile. When that happens we quit dreaming or aspiring for a better life and over time we get used to a life without a dream, which I call the status quo. This is a common human experience and those who have had any success in achieving their dreams often have to work through these difficulties and dare to dream again. I must admit that in my own life, my experiences are not any different from yours when it comes to dealing with the daily obstacles that create a slump in our desire for a better life. Yet I have seen dream fulfillment in some areas of my own life because of the principles I am about to share in the pages of this book. Inspired by mentors in my life who dared to reawaken their dreams when it seems like obstacles in life had forced them to shelf their aspirations, I am encouraged to let you know you too can reawaken, your dreams. Life is not over for you, provided you are willing to put in the effort necessary. It is, for this reason, why I write to inspire you to reach deep into yourself and declare that, Life is not over for me. My dreams can become a reality.

It’s Time to Dream Again is a complete principled-based book meant to help you learn the principles of resurrecting or reawakening your inactive or dead dreams. This book utilizes time tested and