Wishes

Blog by Kristen Hicks

Two years ago, the Lord told me to pull away for three days and dream with Him. I wasn’t exactly sure how in the world to do that, after all, I had laid my dreams down at His feet and surrendered my life and my will to Him. The beautiful thing about this invitation, however, was that it wasn’t such an invitation to tell God what I wanted. It was one to partner with and dream with Him. Kinda like I imagine God and Adam did when he named the animals. He was pulling me close and entrusting me to call out the things that He had placed on my heart. It sounds easy, but it was definitely harder than one might think. It stretched me and marked me.

Now, here I am sitting in Redding, California, at Bethel’s WorshipU School. It is two weeks and of a waterfall of in-depth teaching on worship, songwriting, being creative, leadership, and general heart stuff. I am incredibly humbled to get to learn underneath such incredible men and women of God. It has already been such an honor to dip into their deep wells and walk down the well- worn paths that they have created with the Father.

I haven’t really met many people. There are tons of people here, but being an introvert and knowing no one has been way more difficult than I thought. I’ve stretched myself, I’ve made the first move, and done all the things, but I’ve realized, there also isn’t really much time to make deep connections. The Lord can most definitely change that as my time here goes on though.

But, one thing that I have really enjoyed in all my introvertness (is that a word?) is getting to be a people watcher and an evesdropper. Come on, sometimes you can’t help it. The thing that has struck me is that for a lot of people there is so much pressure on them with being at this school. I sat across from two people today and listened to them stressing about their plan to market themselves, and all the things they’ve done wrong so far. The guy told the girl that she needed to change all of her classes to the music business classes because that’s what they needed to hear in order to change their approach in how they did things. I was stressed out sitting there listening to them. Sometimes, the pressure of the music industry pains me, because I don’t think it’s supposed to be that way all the time. At least not in the ways we make it. There have been a few times here, I’ve felt like I’m at an audition for American Idol or the Voice or something. Like this is all or nothing. As if we are all here auditioning to be the next Bethel worship leader. Not that I would hate that, don’t get me wrong, but that isn’t why I’m here. It’s just a weird vibe with that at times.

Honestly, I’m not really sure why I’m here. That was the question my connect group told us to think about and answer for ourselves over the next couple of days. “Why am I here?” I love Bethel, I’ve already gleaned so much from them over the years, I want to sing and I want to lead, I know that. But why the Lord has me here, actually here, not listening online, but here— pulled away, by myself, in a city where I know no one, learning about this subject that I absolutely adore… I don’t know yet. But I’m excited to find out.

It brings me back to my dreaming days with the Father. I have this picture of my child-like self wild and running free in a field with the Father and all of sudden I just stop to pick a dandelion. “Wishes” is what my niece calls them. “Let’s pick wishes,” she says. She is most adorable. Ok, back to my picture… So I imagine I stop, pick a dandelion, glance up at the Father, see the delight in His eyes and hear Him whisper, “Go ahead, blow.” As if He would give me whatever my heart truly desired at that moment.

I think that’s the point of all of this. Our dreams are really just realities of God’s heart for us.His delight is of a Father that loves to give good gifts to His kids. Gifts for us to enjoy, and learn from. To lead other people to His heart. To experience the world in wonder of Him and to live for the pleasure of His smile, not perform for the expectations of our own standards or others. We just get to be His and do life with Him in every single area. And I think that the more we learn to be our child-like selves, running wild and free in a field with Him, the more He places “wishes” in our paths for us to stop and pick, look at Him and wait for Him to tell us to “blow.”

So here’s to running in fields and picking “wishes.”