Introduction  True Legend of Honi The Circle Maker, a first century Jewish sage whose bold prayer ended a drought and saved a generation  Batterson states, “Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn’t offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less.

Dream Big: Is there a Limit to God’s Power?  “At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. Instead of going after our dreams, we stop circling Jericho.”

Dream Big: Is there a Limit to God’s Power?  “The size of prayers depends on the size of our God.”  “Our date of death is not the date etched on our tombstone. The day we stop dreaming is the day we start dying.”  “If you want to keep growing spiritually, you need to keep stretching. How? By going after dreams that are bigger than you are.”

Praying Hard is Praying through  “Praying hard is more than words; it’s blood, sweat and tears. Praying hard is two dimensional: praying like it depends on God, and working like it depends on you.”  “Reading is the way you get through the Bible; prayer is the way you get the Bible through you.”

Praying Hard is Praying through  “Praying hard is asking God to make your life harder. The harder you pray, the harder you will have to work. And that is a blessing from God.”  “Where do you feel like you need God least? Where are you most proficient, most sufficient? Maybe that’s where God wants you to trust Him to do something beyond your ability.”

The Key to dreaming big and praying hard is Thinking Long  “Praying is planting. Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It disappears for a season, but it eventually bears fruit that blesses future generations.”  “Instead of thinking in terms of time, we must think in terms of eternity. Instead of thinking in terms of ourselves, we must think in terms of our children and grandchildren”

The Key to dreaming big and praying hard is Thinking Long = Life Goal List  “Prayers naturally turn into goals, and goals naturally turns into prayers. Goals give you a prayer target.”  “Show me your vision, and I’ll show you your future.”  “Goals are dreams with deadlines. If dreams are the destination, goals are the GPS that gets you there.”

10 Steps to Goal Setting as we Circle our Life Goals  Start with Prayer - If you set goals in the context of prayer, there is a much higher likelihood that your goals will honor God.  Check Your Motives- Take a long, honest look in the mirror and make sure you’re going after your goals for the right reasons  Think in Categories- Family, Influential, experiential, physical and travel  Be Specific- Just like our prayers, our goals need to be specific. If a goal isn’t measurable, we have no way of knowing whether we’ve accomplished it.

10 Steps to Goal Setting as we Circle our Life Goals  Write it Down- “The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.” If you’ve not written down your goals, you haven’t really set them.  Include Others- I’ve discovered that when you go after a goal with another person, it doubles your joy.  Celebrate along the Way- When you accomplish a goal, celebrate it. We should celebrate with the same intensity with which we pray.

10 Steps to Goal Setting as we Circle our Life Goals  Dream Big- You need some God-sized goals that qualify as crazy. Here’s why: big goals turn us in to big people.  Think Long- Honi the Circle Maker grappled with this question: Is it possible for a man to dream continuously for seventy years? “Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.”  Pray Hard- Goal setting begins and ends with prayer