All kinds of people, professionals and non, speculate about dreams. The bible speaks of interpreting dreams, prophetic dreams, and the significance of dreams and visions. For males and females, young and old, dreams come in the night or during the hours when sleep offers them the playfield of their minds, presenting the fantastical, the horrific, the frustrating, the silly, or the telltale scenes of problematic issues in our lives.
But how about those inspirations we develop in our childhoods? The ones we refer to as dreams for our futures. We explain with confidence to our parents or friends what we hope to be when we're "grown up". From the silly to the profound, from the weekly variations to the unflinching constants, we learn at different times just how hard making a dream come true can be.
We've been told by the famous, the infamous, and the next door neighbor to "Never give up!" It's assumed if you're willing to work hard enough and long enough, that dream you've been nursing along will eventually come to fruition. And for some it will.
So what happens when it doesn't?
As Christians, we're not so different from unbelievers when it comes to dreams. Are we? We possess our expectations, our desires, our plans and designs of what we expect our dreams to be, to look like, how we hope they'll play out. We set in motion the efforts and hard work to make those dreams come true. Don't we? And we pray.
Many of us when forming our dreams are not quite willing to fully submit them to our Father. We fool ourselves a bit by rationalizing our desires to accomplish certain dreams we've set before us with acknowledging our gifting in this area, our obvious talent, and the call placed upon us by the Holy One. How could He want anything less than the formulated plan we've assumed is the just right path to this magnificent dream?
And when the dream stalls? When the dream slams against obstructions like the ocean assaulting rocks? When the frustration overtakes the fervor? When the hint of anger pricks our prayers? When confusion rents our consciousness and our thoughts jerk like a balloon flapping in the wind? What of "the dream" then?
In my experience with multiple dreams dissolving into particles so small and invisible you couldn't find them with an electron microscope, let me share what I've learned about dreams. Dreams arise in us when we love something. We thrill at the prospect of making the dream an ongoing project in our lives. We imagine what success in accomplishing this thing will feel like. How we'll give "all the glory to God for what He's done in our lives". And so on. Here's the thing. Real God-engineered dreams aren't about our successes. They're about our obedience to Him. Dreams from our Lord issued to us by the Holy Spirit's mandate involve obedience and total surrender to His goal. The pleasure - and true success - come from the celebration of what He worked into existence using us. Man-made dreams are all about us, what we can do, how we take them on and make them ours. Every day man-made dreams are realized. Most of us have realized one or two. Some small. Some large.
But when the surrender of the man-made dream lies at the feet of Jesus, and He replaces it with what He had in mind for us all along, somehow it's better. If we'd considered it before the surrender, it wouldn't have pulled us in. It wasn't what we wanted, thought we needed, or even considered relevant. In fact we might've ignored it. But when we get to the end of ourselves, seeing who we really are, we don't want any more dreams that originate without His anointing, His divine instruction and design, His personal touch. Nothing we create without Him is worth what it costs us.
In this old song (the first one in this link) we can see the futility of holding onto certain dreams. They continue to play out in our heads but accomplish nothing in reality. Whose dream do you want?
So. Are ya "livin' the dream"?
God, help us to complete what you have given us. May your intentions and designs compose our dreams. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.