The Power of Dreams

I had the unique priv­i­lege and edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­nity to spend a por­tion of my day talk­ing with a prin­ci­pal of, what is in my opin­ion, one of the great design firms and inno­va­tors cur­rently out there today.  Some­times life throws us those neat lit­tle treats, the gifts that we get to enjoy.  I have had the chance to expe­ri­ence their work, be sur­rounded by the spaces they have designed that were inspired by dreams.  It is a unique expe­ri­ence to both enter into and be moved by a space.  By the place­ment of walls, win­dows, col­ors, and other stuff that elic­its feel­ings and response.  Since that con­ver­sa­tion I have spent time pray­ing over the dream here at MCChurch.  The pos­si­bil­i­ties, the future, the impact, the role we will play in God’s grander story of His King­dom and His peo­ple yes­ter­day, today, and tomor­row.  Just to spend some time won­der­ing what is it that God is invit­ing us into, what is it that He will do, what chap­ter of the story is He about to author.

I was struck by what a unique and won­der­ful gift it is to dream.  To won­der, to be cap­tured by an idea that knows no bounds, that can’t pos­si­bly fail, that will change lives, pos­si­bly even change the world.  Noth­ing can stop us in our dreams, pos­si­bil­i­ties are lim­it­less, bound­aries non exis­tence, the world is our oyster.

I began to think about what God was dream­ing and what he already new before the world was ever formed.  When He could have done what­ever He wanted when water could be pur­ple and the sky orange, and meat­balls could rain from the sky, and a warm sum­mer breeze smell like choco­late.  Yet the world we live in is His dream spo­ken.  Form put to ideas, a uni­verse that cries out to the nature of it’s cre­ated order and points in wor­ship to it’s creator.

I have spent a lot of time reflect­ing on Joshua in the first chap­ter of the book that bears his name and have won­dered what it must have been like to hear the voice of God so clearly.  And then to look across the river Jor­dan into a new land, a land God promised to Abra­ham, and to won­der, to dream about what it would be like to finally live there.  To lead the peo­ple there, and see God build His peo­ple there.  What did Joshua dream?  How scared was he?  What did he pray?  How alive did he feel in that moment.

Sadly, to roughly quote one of my favorite authors, we expe­ri­ence most of our dreams in our sleep…  Few dare to dream wide awake, to live to see the real­ity of a dream come to life, to risk com­mu­ni­cat­ing the dream, to chase the dream, jour­ney toward its real­iza­tion and expe­ri­ence the exhil­a­ra­tion of vic­tory and the sting of fail­ure along the way with all the lessons to be learned and sto­ries to be told.

I pray for myself, my fam­ily, my Church, and for any­one else who should stum­ble across these ran­dom thoughts.  I pray for the bold­ness to dream wide awake and to be will­ing to risk to live the dream. And I hope some day to hear the sto­ries, because the good Lord knows they will be great stories.

To quote Steven Tyler  “Dream on”

Feel­ing a bit cheesy now, until next time