The Problem with Dreaming

I’d love to start this with something funny. Throwing in another Frozen reference would be a good way to break the ice. Unfortunately I can’t because there is nothing humorous in what is going to follow this pointless opening.

I struggled with how to start this whole thing off. You can look at the above three sentences and see that. When you write a book they say the opening sentence can make or break it. That assumption alone means the odds of you continuing to read this aren’t high. I beg your pardon, bear with me, I hope by the end you will understand it all. At the risk of being redundant what is to follow will be in part nothing new and yet in essence quite fresh. Ready? Good.

If you are like me when you were little you probably had big dreams for yourself. You know the kind I’m talking about, the little boy who is going to be a superhero when he grows up, the young girl who is going to be a princess in some magical castle complete with a prince. Fast forward a few years and you discover reality and that dreams rarely work out or at the least they change.

The title of this is not actually an attack on having dreams. It might look like such but I promise I’m not condemning someone who has big dreams. In fact dreams are good they help keep that part of us alive that so many people kill off as they age-imagination. The problem comes when those dreams become idols. And they can so easily morph into something you want so badly that you forget that you weren’t put on Earth to dream you were put here for a purpose and sometimes that purpose looks nothing like what you thought it would.

When I was younger I was convinced by the time I was twenty I’d be married and have kids. I didn’t realize then that twenty wasn’t that old or that at such an age I’d only be two years out of high school. Life moves on, I’m three months from being twenty-six and can’t have biological kids. That dream is out the window. But do you see what I mean? It’s incredibly easy to get these ideas in our heads of what we want to happen so bad we just convince ourselves no matter their legitimacy they will come true.

Then they don’t come true and you’re left wondering if something went wrong or you didn’t try hard enough.

Maybe you have dreams that aren’t inherently selfish. The past several years I’ve spent a great majority of my time reading mission blogs and books, specifically the one’s that focus on Africa. A place I want to visit with people I need to meet and love and live among even just for a few weeks at a time. The problem being I can’t. There are the usual obstacles like money those plane tickets aren’t cheap. I also have to plan my travel around testosterone injections and that is more annoying than lacking financially.

Here is where that dream went south, where it became an idol. Strange to think something I thought was honoring God was in fact keeping me from doing just that. It got to the point where I just refused to think that God could have anything different for me to do. Africa or bust. I didn’t realize this until last week sitting in Bible Study. (Notice the theme of being in a group of people who grapple with the hard things in life. It’s important.) We talked briefly about missions and how there’s two defined roles. You are either one who goes or one who sends. Neither of these roles is more important than the other although it can certainly feel like it. But still, being a goer (even short term like I planned) isn’t an easy thing to let go of even if that means just waiting a little longer.

I realized though that for now I’m a sender. There is something remarkable in that role. Giving to Bayside is great, I love being able to give to the local body of Christ. However, giving to the global body, missions specifically, is fantastic. Maybe I can’t go now but I can help those that God has called to go now. It certainly hasn’t been an easy thing to come to terms with. But we aren’t promised a life that is easy. We are only promised a life that is for our good and often that good involves pain so we can grow and sorrow so we can have real and lasting joy.

You want to dream do it. Just make sure those dreams don’t become idols. Even the most God-honoring dreams can become idols if we aren’t careful. When that happens you can miss out on what God has for you and it is far better than anything you can dream up yourself.

Our good for His Glory.