Dream a little dream with me



Photo by Jenny H, by permission.

 As a chubby nine-year old, I dreamt of a new bike, gleaming. Perhaps a birthday surprise? I promised to God that if I got it I would clean it everyday and always lock it up in the shed at night. I closed my eyes and I could almost hear the echoing clack-clack of the playing cards on the spokes. It was red and chrome and wonderful all over. 

I didn’t get it that year. Or the next. But on my 12^th birthday, there it was.

“I have a dream,” shouted Martin Luther King in a sermon that still reverberates across the ocean of time. He saw a situation and envisioned a better day for minorities. His dream is coming true. What would have happened if he had never uttered what God had impressed on his heart?

Whether you are dreaming of world change or a silly bicycle, there are four types of dreams — Those that are fulfilled, those that are delayed, those that are denied, and those that are suppressed

Of all those, the most difficult to live with are those that are suppressed. We’ve all had God put something in our hearts and then we spend our days denying it ever existed, or making excuses why it can’t be done. The shadow chases us until we finally give in. But when we don’t give in, it gives up the pursuit and finds another who is more willing.

I remember reading Genesis, when the brothers of Joseph had a little fun at his expense. “Here comes that dreamer!” they said. Leaning on each other’s shoulders, doubled over in mockery, the older brothers had quite the laugh.

The lad with the big ideas wasn’t the most popular brother. He saw things no one else could and it caused division. And so it is with dreamers. They will never be popular. They’ll be called “out of touch.” They’ll be scorned and talked about behind their backs. They’ll lose friends. But someone around here has to dream. Someone has to see things the way they ought to be and then work at articulating and planting that dream in all of us.

Maybe no one else will see that dream and you’ll spend your lifetime fulfilling it, alone with only God at your side. Such is the burden – and joy – of a dreamer.

 What have you always wanted to do and never pursued? And what excuses have you thrown up to keep you from chasing that dream? Are any of them too great for God?  It’s never too late to turn the dream suppressed into the dream fulfilled.

What’s your dream? Comment here.

Please, share with a friend if you feel moved.
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