Living The Dream

I had this really weird dream last night, which shouldn’t be all that surprising, because what dreams are ever normal?  I woke up thinking, “That was really weird, and I’m so glad that wasn’t real.  In fact, there isn’t a chance in the world that could ever be real”… which is the stuff dreams are made of – things that feel real while you’re dreaming but can/would never happen in the real world.

By the way, who determines what can/would ever happen in the real world?  Isn’t that why we give up on our dreams, even our God-given ones!?!  We decide, after a number of failed attempts (either at the dream itself or others that are even less challenging), that God’s dream in us can/would never happen in the real world… at least not in our world.

We look at the dream, and we look where we are, and we think, “You can’t get there from here!”  That’s the problem with dreams. 

You can never just do the dream. 

Any dream worth its salt is totally out of reach from the immediate.

If you want to take your family to Disney World, you can’t just be there.  You have to set out on a journey.  No amount of wanting, wishing, believing, or talking about it can get you there.  You actually have to set out on the journey.  You have to plan and then execute, follow through, to make your dream vacation a reality. 

If Disney World is your dream vacation, then Disney World is not “where dreams are made;” it’s where dreams are realized.  And you find out that dream vacations always take longer and cost more to get there than you first realized.

Are we there yet?

What about the dream of reaching our community, our culture, with the incredible truth of Jesus Christ?  What about a dream that includes not only people in mass being drawn to God but His actually transforming them?  the real them?  the one that never changed before and was so full of impossibilities they had long since given up? 

They say the journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step.  Great!?  And if you take big steps, it also includes another 1,759,999 after it.  Sound daunting?  But wait a minute, even in playing a game of golf, you’ll walk an average of 12,320 big steps.

So get walking.  Start executing – in the direction of your God-given dreams.  Begin responding to God’s dreams in you.  You can’t get there from here.  You can’t reach your dream from here.  What I mean is… who you are is not sufficient for what you need to become in order to reach your dreams.  It takes movement.  It takes steps.  It takes execution. 

So go beyond talking, actually put your life on the line.  Engage your dreams.  Engage the Creator of the dream.  Get disciplined.  GET REAL.