By Helen Jesze 18th September 2026
“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not be afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua 1:9 KJV
We once found a poster similar to the picture above. Although it was rather faded, the message was very clear. Then a friend who was an artist, drew this splendid poster, and added some special touches of his own. Kitty is asleep in her basket, dreaming that she is really a tiger, and wee mousie in the lefthand corner is dreaming that he is an elephant!!
Underneath are the words: When you dream, dream BIG!!!
And the verse at the top commands us like Joshua, to be bold and courageous, for our God is with us!
Now, we all know physically, that is impossible to change from a cat to a tiger or from a mouse to an elephant! Yet, the message of the poster is, that if we are bold and trust in our God, some of our dreams can become reality, if they are God’s dreams and not our own. I know in my life, some of my dreams, were not worth anything, although they seemed very grand to me at the time. But looking back, I am so grateful that God destroyed them, and He taught me to dream His dreams!
If we have a great desire to fulfil God’s calling and mandate on our lives, and seek to bless others and further His Kingdom, He often gives us a dream, a longing in our heart. But God’s dreams are not when we sleep (although He does give literal dreams sometimes), but they come when we are reaching out to Him, when we are spiritually ‘awake’, and listening for His voice.
God spoke those words to Joshua, telling him that he should be bold and full of courage, promising that He would be with him wherever he would go. Young Joshua had been Moses’ righthand man; he learned so much from him, but when Moses died and God put Joshua as the leader to lead all the Israelites into the Promised Land, Joshua cried out to God for help, wisdom and guidance. It was a huge task, but God spoke those challenging and reassuring words to His servant.
He would not go alone! His God, Jahweh, would be with them and they would go in and possess the land! And so they did, but that is another story!
So dear friends, let’s dream some big dreams for God. He does not just use ‘Joshuas’, He wants to use every one of us. And let’s take this Bible verse as our very own!
“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua 1:9 KJV
And our God keeps His promises!