Dealing With Deferred Dreams

Jeremiah 29:4-14

October 7, 2001

Rev. Tyron L. Browder

Morning Star MBC (evening)

Many years ago in the mines of South Africa, native South Africans were engaged in digging in that mine. They were digging for the reputed treasure reported to be in that mine. However there was a terrible cave-in; so much so that those diggers found themselves trapped in trouble with a limited oxygen supply. And to magnify their misery, there appeared to be no way out. The oxygen supply was limited, the cave was dark and so they did everything in their power to make a move toward the area that would promise their freedom and deliverance. However the minutes gave way to hours and the oxygen supply (of course) was diminishing, the darkness was deepening, and at the same time that they were trying to facilitate their own deliverance there was a rescue team that had been dispatched and this rescue team found themselves making its way toward them or toward the area they were last known to be. And when they came in close proximity, they could tell from the other side where the diggers were captured by the cave-in because there was a knocking and a tapping. And immediately they discovered that they were tapping in Morse code. And the code they were tapping in, there were these questions being raised:

Is there anybody out there?
Is there any hope?

This was the message that was being tapped on the walls of the mine there in South Africa by those who were captured by the cave-in. And then to magnify their misery the oxygen supply was diminishing, the darkness was deepening, and now they are wondering, “is there anybody out there? Is there any hope?”

Imagine with me for just a few moments the peril of their predicament. On the one hand the oxygen supply was diminishing, on the other hand the darkness was deepening, and then to make matters worse they found themselves trapped in a situation and there appeared to be no way out. And then my brothers and sister to underscore these perplexing problems – notice if you will that these people captured by the cave-in had no earthly idea when or if their deliverance was going to come.

Now let’s look at that for a moment… On the one hand they are trapped in some trouble that they need to get out of but there appears to be no exit. On the other hand their oxygen supply is rapidly diminishing and then to make matter worse the darkness is deepening, and then to amplify to their agony they do not know if there is anyone out there that is aware of their predicament and then to further dampen their difficulty they find themselves wondering if or when help will ever come.

And there is someone here today in your own life you are searching, you are digging, you are moving toward something only to find yourself trapped in a situation that you know you need to get out of. But then to make matter worse it appears that your resources for holding on and maintaining are slowly diminishing. And then to magnify your misery the darkness is deepening so that you can’t see your way out, you can’t see your way through. And then you are praying, you are hoping, and you desire that deliverance will come. Yes you prayed but all of your praying has resulted in limited or no movement and so now you are unaware if there is anyone or anything that will facilitate your freedom or play into your deliverance. You are praying. You are hoping. All the while that you are hoping you are realizing that your deliverance is far off, deliverance is down the line. Truly your deliverance has been deferred.

I think that Langston Hughes can help us out here. Langston looking at the predicament of his people whose skin had been darkened by nature’s sun wrote a collection of poems entitled A Montage of a Dream Deferred. In this collection of poems, he poetically proclaims that we are people who perennially experience providential postponement when it comes to the fulfillment of our plans. In other words, we’ve known delayed or deferred dreams. So listen to Langston Hughes as he angrily raises the question and then pessimistically prophesies and gives the answer. He says, “What happens to a dream deferred?” He then answers: “From river to river, uptown and down, there’s liable to be confusion when dreams get kicked around.” Langston Hughes is simply answering the question of what happens to dreams that get deferred and plans that get postponed. Let me go ahead and raise the question right now: what are you waiting for? What are you hoping for? What have you prayed for and the answer has not come? What experience do you find yourself wondering if you’re ever going to be delivered from? I might as well get in your seat since you are looking at me all cold and chilly right now…

Relocation
Save a spouse or family member
Deliver you from a job or move your supervisor
Deliver you from illness
Heart ache from being let down

…and you are wondering when the pain is going to go away but your dream has been deferred, your hope has taken a holiday, your plans have been postponed. You are experiencing what Dr. Austin calls the meantime. The meantime is when you are caught up in the “in between.” The meantime? Yes, the meantime. The meantime is when your dreams have been deferred.

As we come to our text we discover that the people of God are caught up in the in between. They are mired in the meantime. Let me tell you what happened, it was between 598 and 587 B.C. that the unthinkable happened. Nebuchadnezzar had ransacked, raided, and removed the people of God from the Holy city of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. This was Jerusalem, the Holy City. Imagine how that must have rocked their world and messed with their minds because this is Jerusalem. This is where the temple place of worship is located and Nebuchadnezzar, a non-believer, had allowed his awesome army to swoop down on Jerusalem on a mission of destruction and dislocation. And the people of God had to watch this occur and them to add insult to injury, Nebuchadnezzar took captive the cream of the cream, the big wheels. He took them into captivity back to Babylon. And so here they are in Babylon, they have experienced destruction and dislocation. They have experienced upheaval and then being uprooted. They have experienced (check this out) ransacking, raiding, and removal to Babylon. And in Babylon you know they’ve gone through some stuff. The unthinkable has happened, they’ve been uprooted and now they find themselves in an unfamiliar place with unkind people, and to make matter worse they have an unending problem. And the Bible tells us that whenever your dreams are deferred you will either hand in your resignation or receive wrong information.

You don’t have to believe me. Let’s appeal to the text and check out the corresponding passage in Psalm 137. It says, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Our Babylonian captives came along and they had the audacity to ask us to sing songs of Zion.” But look what they did, the Book says that they handed in their resignation, they hung their harps on the willow tree and said how do you expect us to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.

Is that your disposition this evening? You’re experiencing a deferred dream, you find yourself messing around in the meantime and you are experiencing providential postponement, you’ve moved into an unfamiliar place with people who are unkind. And a problem that seems to be unending.

But check this out some people don’t hand in their resignation, they receive the wrong information. In verses 8-10 in the 29th chapter of Jeremiah, the prophet tells the people that they have some phony prophets who are engaging in fake faith and giving you hallow hope. They are saying that you are going back to Jerusalem real soon. “But I have got to give you the word from Heaven because I am not a phony prophet, I am a real prophet.” And guess what? Whenever you are experiencing deferred dream, whenever you are mired in the meantime, whenever you are experiencing providential postponement there are always phony prophets who come along and give you hallow hope based on fake faith. You know what they say, “everything is going to be alright, if you just hold on things are going to change.” You know what they say don’t you? They always try to give you some rosy outlook that does not correspond with your reality. You know what I’m talking about don’t you? They always have these pious platitudes that have nothing to do with the reality of your situation. You know phony prophets, they are those who were not sent they just went. You know what I’m talking about.

Well, you see Jeremiah said, “I’m not a phony prophet, I’ve been talking to God and because I’ve been talking to God, I’ve got something to say to you.” Let me say this… You know that you got a phony prophet if that prophet never spends any time talking with God. I mean how can you expect to talk for God if you never spend any time talking to God. Jeremiah said don’t you receive that wrong information, don’t you hand in your resignation just because you are caught up in the meantime and your dreams have been deferred.

Meantime? Yes, meantime. What is the meantime? The meantime is that time between hope and hallelujah. The meantime is that time between desire and deliverance. The meantime is that time between anguish and answered prayers. And I’ve got news for you… I don’t care how big your Bible is, how long you’ve been in church, whether you are a baby believer or a seasoned saint most of our lives are spent in the meantime where we are waiting for this to happen, waiting for that to occur, waiting for this decision, waiting for this move to take place. All of us have got a date in God’s waiting room where God puts us on hold where God says you’ve got to wait while I do to you and in you before I answer the prayer for you. That’s heavy, most of our lives are spent in the meantime. Meantime! Meantime! Don’t go looking crooked-eyed at me because there is some single person here you’ve been praying, “God send me my wife!” but you are in the meantime. Someone else has been praying for that husband but you are in the meantime. Somebody’s been praying God get me (BLEEP) out of Kankakee but you are in the meantime!

And the meantime can be a mean time. You’re a Christian but you are in the meantime. I need some witnesses because you looking me in my eyes but you ain’t feeling me in your hearts. So I need to call Abraham to the witness stand… God told me when I was about 75 you are going to have some children and be a father to many nations but I didn’t have my son Isaac until some 20 years later, all that other time was spent in the meantime. Moses, take the stand! God told me to go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go and then to lead them to the promised land. We made it to the promised land but we spent 40 years in the meantime! Job, please take the witness stand. I lost a whole lot, I lost my children, I lost my riches, I lost my resources, and God did not until the end of the book that bears my name bless my life and restore my fortune. All of that time was spent in the meantime! That’s my word Morning Star you’ve got to log some hours in the meantime! And if you are in the meantime, I’ve got some good news for you. You need to recognize that painful postponements are pregnant with providential possibilities. And consequently whenever you are in the meantime, because it is pregnant with providential possibility it means that God has placed something in you because He knows that He can’t accomplish through you all that He has for you until you spend sometime in the meantime.

Just realize that no matter what you are going through in your downtime, God is up to something. So let’s go back to that cave-in. Guess what happened while the diggers were caught in the meantime… they discovered some diamonds there in that mine because while they were losing their breath they opened their eyes and they saw something sparkling in the darkness. But they would not have discovered the diamonds had they been delivered too soon. And then there was a shake-up on the top of the ground and the earthquake so moved the area where the cave-in occurred that is provided a way of escape for them to get out. But in the meantime they discovered some diamonds that they would not have found had they not been trapped in some trouble but then they experienced some deliverance when God shook them out of that meantime. And that’s my word to somebody today, in your meantime God has some diamonds that he wants you to discover so you go on and get your diamonds and after you get you diamonds, God is going to shake up your situation and deliver you from your meantime. And we also know that the meantime is also that time between rejection resurrection. (CONSIDER STOPPING HERE)

Well, let me walk around the text and take you to Sunday school so you guys don’t think I forgot to study. I just want to lay a couple/three points on you and take my seat. 1) Engage in proactivity that is fruitful (read v5). Jeremiah said, “you all are going to be here for a while so in the MEANTIME build, plant, and marry.” Build, plant, and get married! Stop waiting for something to happen for you. You see a lot of us sink in the quicksand of self-pity when we get in the meantime and we start saying, “Woe is me.” Jeremiah says quit that crying you are going to be in America (rather Babylon) for a while; here’s what you do build, plant, and get married. Engage in self-determining behavior. Quit complaining about what you don’t have and use what you do have. I think God is talking to Black folks right there. I won’t push that. But we do need to engage in economic development. Build houses (buy your own 40 acres), plant gardens (reaping don’t take place in sewing season), and then marry (focus on your sustaining relationships). A lot of times in our meantime we turn mean to those who are closest to us. We dog and dis the people who are standing by us and praying for us. We are to cultivate those relationships in the meantime. Have you heard about the two frogs that fell into a butter churn? Well, they kept hopping and hopping and one frog got tired and gave up and drowned. The other just kept at it and kicking and hopping and trying to jump out but it couldn’t because the cream was so slick. But he kept at it. He kept on kicking and kept on hopping and eventually the cream got churned into butter and the butter became so solid that the frog was able to hop on out to freedom. And that’s what God is saying to somebody tonight. Quit being like frog number one and giving in to your situation. Keep on kicking and keep on hopping and eventually you will convert that which is negative into that which is positive! Engage in proactivity that is fruitful.

2) Extend a pardon to your foes. You need to get this. These were some low-lifes that took these people from there home. Ransacked their homes. Killed their people. And God says, “Pray for them.” These are the people who have caused their present pain. And God says, “Be nice them.” These are the folks responsible for their sordid situation and God says you are to hope for their best because if they prosper, you prosper. And it is easy to hate on folks that harm you. It is easy to become bitter and to resent those who are responsible for your meantime situation. But God is saying that He can’t deliver you from the meantime if you have a mean spirit and so you need to forgive those that have done you wrong. Because you have to understand that whenever somebody has done you wrong, God says, “vengeance is mine! I will handle them, I will repay them.” So don’t you walk around holding a grudge because after a while that grudge will start to hold you. Extend a pardon to your foes.

Let me illustrate. I was in the airport leaving Texas and returning to Iowa. I was thinking about a co-worker that had backstabbed me that week and in Texas all I wanted to do was get her back. Yeah I know all about the vengeance is mine verse but I am from the old school. My mother told me if someone hits you then you hit them back! Somebody knows what I am talking about! So I am thinking about this woman that had done me wrong and backstabbed me. All I was thinking about was how I could get her back. I really wanted to get her because I am vindictive by nature. God is working on me in that regard. I am not going to lie, you can look holy all you want to but I wanted some revenge. So I am zooming through the airport with my garment bag in one hand and my laptop in the other and I am running late for my flight and I am thinking about revenge. Things were going fine until I got to this automatic, revolving door. See when you hit the mat, the door begins to do its thing and there was this small opening as the door was about to cycle around. When I saw that opening, I began to have visions of that young man that used to cut on a dime and leave eight cents change. I hit the doors and got inside in good shape, I wish you could have seen me Morning Star. Unfortunately, when I got inside the door had already begun to move and my laptop got hung up. So I tried to hold the doors back and the alarms started going off and when I looked up, the police were headed right toward me. The police, in the great state of Texas? They came up to me, I was in a panic. They said, “Young man stop! Stop! Stop! Young man, you can’t come through unless you drop that bag. I said that I can’t drop this bag, I have got to carry it on through here with me. He said young man, you drop the bag, I’ll take care of it for you but the only way that you can go forward is to drop the bag because this door only revolves in one direction and so you can’t move to the other side until you drop that bag. So I dropped the bag and God spoke to me, He said Browder you are thinking about that co-worker who stabbed you in the back. You are trying to move to the other side but you can’t move to the other side until you drop that bag. You drop that bag and I’ll take care of it! (Repeat Outline)

3) Embrace praying faithfully (read v12)

1. When God answers our prayer they come in one of two postures

a. Received – God does something and you have nothing at all to do with it

b. Achieved – You seek, you go after, you pursue (you won’t get by sitting!)

i. You prayed now walk toward your answer

1. ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.

4) Expect your promised future

1. Where you are ain’t where you are going to be – God has plans for you

a. Illustration of being put on hold by Dr. Coffey while waiting for transcripts

b. You feel that God has you on hold

a. He is working out something on your behalf

i. Where you are ain’t where you’re going

b. Traveling to hotel from airport

c. Transfer point not end of line – one bus took us to the transfer point where hotel shuttle buses come to take customers to their respective hotels.

i. Other buses come during wait – not the right one

ii. Read the signs

c. Bus may take you to transfer point but that ain’t the end of the line

a. Get off what you’ve been on – transfer

i. Relationship

ii. Job

b. Read the signs

i. Not Pisces, Aquarius, or Leo

ii. But do they know Jesus? Do they have future plans?