More than Meatloaf- some thoughts on Dreams and Dreamers

            Dreams can be a funny thing. You never really know when they start or where they come from but you always wake up slightly confused.

            I once had a dream that I was breaking into the Weather Channel TV station for some reason and Al Roker from the Today show happened to be there so I felt it necessary to hold him up at gun point. I pointed the gun at him but before I could do anything I seemed to come to my senses and realized that I was dreaming. I then said to Al Roker, “What the heck?” to which he replied, “I don’t know, it’s your dream.” Then I woke up thoroughly confused.

            Now as far as I know, I don’t have any secret desires to assassinate America’s favorite weatherman nor do I harbor any ill feelings toward him. I don’t think that in twenty years or so I will need to see a therapist to help me handle these hidden desires because I am pretty sure it was just a dream.

            It was just a dream; a really weird dream, mind you, but still just a dream. It meant nothing and changed nothing. It was just a dream.

            I think those five words are the most dangerous words in our vocabulary when they are arranged that way. It-was-just-a-dream.

            That thing your eight year old self always pretended to be- it was just a dream.

            That person you imagined you would be as your mind wandered away from the ramblings of your high school teacher- it was just a dream. You are older now and know better, you have things you are responsible for and can’t afford going after child-like fancies.

            One of my favorite passages in Scripture is in Acts chapter 2 where Peter gets up in front of 3,000 people and starts to explain why everyone from around the world is hearing their own languages being spoken and seeing strange things being done by the disciples of a man named Jesus who was just executed a month and a half before. Peter quotes the prophet Joel when he says:

            “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will prophecy; your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams”₁

                        Did you catch that? Old men will dream dreams. Old men who have lived their lives through heart ache and disappointment will dream dreams. Old men who have settled down after a full lifetime will dream dreams. Old men who had accepted the fact that their journey is almost done and that it is no more use asking “what if” will dream dreams.

            It doesn’t matter at what point you are in your life, God still has dreams for you. He still has passions and desires that He has placed inside of you that He still plans on bringing out to fruition. Your dreams wouldn’t be there unless they had been given to you by God and He would never have given them to you unless he wanted you to go after them. He would never want you to go after something He didn’t already have waiting for you.

            It was not just a dream.

            So many people are scared to dream because they tried dreaming before and it seemed to come to nothing. They went out to pursue their dream but got caught off guard by the magnitude of it all and enough people told them it was ridiculous that they started believing it. Some always had this dream at the back of their mind but somehow Life got in the way and now they have a job, a mortgage and a whole list of things they are responsible for but aren’t passionate about.

            I talked to a man in New Orleans who carried everything he owned on his back. His face was sun beaten and his hands coarse from years of hard  work. He used to play percussion for the Philharmonic Orchestra, now he gets paid to sweep the streets of the French Quarter. Somewhere down the line something happened and his dreams were abandoned. The odd thing was that he was OK with all this.  He had accepted his lot in life and had given up any hope of being what he wanted to be or ever seeing his family again. He couldn’t accept the fact that God still had dreams for him.

            So many times we blame our dreams on our naivety or ignorance. I blamed the meatloaf I had the night before for the dream I had about Al Roker. The dreams that come from God are more than meatloaf.

            The verse also says that young men will see visions. That part gets me excited.

            One of the biggest problems of my generation is that we have no vision. We have no deep purpose that we are pursuing or any idea of what we want to do with our life. This is probably because we have been raised by old men who refuse to dream. It is no wonder that we are so easily persuaded. When someone has no destination in mind they will go wherever the trail takes them.

            We all start out with dreams and visions but we give it up at the first valley we come to. In Isaiah chapter 22 the prophet talks about a certain valley that God on more than one occasion would reveal Himself to his people. He called it the Valley of Vision. The valley- that place farthest away from civilization and the protection of the city walls. It is the lowest place possible, the place of no hope- and that is where the visions start happening.

            Those seasons in our life that everybody gives up on their dreams are the seasons when our dreams are supposed to come alive. Sometimes God has to let everything in our world crash down on top of us so that remember we have a dream we are supposed to be pursuing anyway. Our biggest struggle is when God puts us on the track to fulfill our deepest desires when we want to be on the track that leads us to temporary comfort. I don’t get people sometimes.

            I don’t want to sound like some cheesy motivational speaker but I think it is time we start pursuing some dreams. There is more out of this world that we all want. I want to get rid of the idea that there is God’s will and there is what we want as people and our job as Christians to find a good balance of the two. I heard someone once say that God’s will is another way of saying “everything you would have chosen anyway if you knew all the details.” I really like that because God is all about making our dreams come true. Following Him means following our dreams, it means becoming who we always wanted to be anyway. Go after God and remember the dreams he gave you. Maybe it is time for some new dreams…

            What dreams have you given up on? Isn’t it about time to start praying for vision and some idea of what the heck to do with your life?

1-     1-  Acts 2:17