Dream a Godly Dream

Do you remember Kermit the Frog singing "Rainbow Connection" at the beginning of "The Muppet Movie"? Honestly, I think that song should be included in the hymnal.

It turns out, when God created you, he left fingerprints. He left his will for your life imprinted in you (the computer tech in me says "hardwired" in you). Where? you ask.

Get quiet, very, very quiet, listen to the silence, until you find the deepest, most fundamental desire in your heart, your innermost dream. That is God's will for you. If you and I are anything alike, it may take a long time. Maybe years.

We are told dreams are for infants. We are told to face "reality" (Why is "reality" always unpleasant? Why are the things of joy and pleasure considered "just feelings"? If we really believe in heaven, isn't "All good things must come to an end" ultimate blasphemy? Doesn't our doctrine of Eternal Life mean Only good things NEVER come to an end? Anyway...)

Bruce Wilkinson has written a marvelous book, The Dream Giver. Bruce says God has implanted a dream in each of us; I am not the creator or the owner of my dream, I am merely the custodian. It is God's will that I launch out and do everything I can to realize that dream. It is God's will for me, and it is God's will for everyone around me.

God gave me a dream, and he gave me talents, gifts, and graces. But he didn't give them to me for me! He gave them to me to share with others. I am supposed to build something that will help others, serve others, save others, heal others, empower others, inform others, enable others. And as I carry out that ministry, I build the Kingdom of God, my part of it.

On the other hand, if I bury my dream; if I consider my talents and gifts to be worthless; don't I now only deny them to others? Don't I also slap the face of the One who created me?

How many children didn't need to starve to death or suffer life-crippling abuse, how many young people didn't need to go down to drug addiction, how many people could have been saved from divorce, from abortion, from murder, from suicide, if more of us had marshalled the courage to launch out of our comfort zones to pursue our God-given dreams!

Are you 55 years old, wondering where your youth went, when all the dreams died, when the fire went out, while you were marshalling the courage to keep getting up in the morning for that dead-end job you only barely tolerate? Is it getting harder and harder to fend off bitterness and futility? Are you watching the last sparks of hope sputter down to die?

Get back in touch with your dream. It's God's will. It's his way out.

And it's his way in.