Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Dreaming For God's Glory

Current Reading: Erwin Mcmanus - Seizing Your Divine Moment
Current Listening: David Crowder* Band - B Collision

When I was in third grade my teacher wrote on my report card that it seemed that I was “out to lunch” during class. I was then and still am a daydreamer. I think of awesome things, incredible things, and things I probably will never do. Some things I think of excite me and some things scare me. Sometimes when I drive over a bridge I think of what it would be like to drive off of the bridge, my car flying through the air and landing in the water.

Would I live?

Would the Ranger XLT sink quickly?

Not that I want to hurt myself at all, but the thought of the event and the exhilaration are painted perfectly in my mind in an instant. Sometimes I have to shake myself out of my dream world because it seems so real. Dreams are exciting! They give us something to live for. We aren’t going to live above what we dream about. My buddy Jance put it like this, “If all you dream about is flipping burgers, then that’s all you are ever going to be.” I think God wants us to dream big and dream wild.

So, as I thought about our dreams I wrote down “dreams are always better than reality.” I read it out loud thinking about it and it was like the Holy Spirit spoke to me directly and said “but it doesn’t have to be.” Now first off, if that was the Holy Spirit, He doesn’t use proper grammar, but hey…they Bible is full of things that wouldn’t be considered proper grammar in English today. When I presented this idea to my youth group (Dreams are always better than reality…but they don’t have to be) one kid insisted that daydreams would always beat reality. He said that nothing could happen that could beat something he could imagine. My mind immediately went to a statement made by Paul when he was writing to the church in Ephesus. Here is Eugene Peterson’s translation of Ephesians 3:20…God can do anything, you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. So here is the dichotomy…We aren’t going to live beyond what we dream about, but we can live beyond our wildest dreams!

So…may you dream big and go for it and may God take you beyond all that you could ask or imagine.

No comments: