“So are you saying we can’t dream for ourselves?”
I told them that a dream worth following has to be about a story bigger than ourselves. Following a dream just for yourself will eventually leave you with a sense of emptiness.
He kept going. “That’s the problem with religion. Everything I want to do…I can’t.”
Think about that, about how often Jesus is presented as cosmic killjoy. In his mind this poor guy faces a terrible choice. Accept Jesus and a life of no fun, or reject Him because all He represents is a list of what you’re not supposed to do.
“Give me an example.”
“Okay, my dream is to own a fishing boat off the Florida coast. I want to take people fishing, show them a good time, and build a successful business. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. What about the rest of you? Sound like a great dream to you?” Everyone nodded.
“Yeah, but I’m not doing anything for anybody else. I’m not feeding starving kids or giving bibles to people in Africa. I’m just taking people fishing.”
I looked around the room and waited.
“It’s not about that,” another man offered, “it’s about how you deal with the people, how you talk to them.” I tried to hide my smile.
“You’ll spend a lot of time out there on the water, swapping stories, and you’ll get a chance to tell some of them how you went through addiction, how you screwed up a million times and still got through it. You’ll figure out how to work Jesus into your story in a way that works for you and isn’t preachy.”
“And,” volunteered a third guy, “maybe you’ll hire a helper. And when you get settled and experienced you’ll hire a recovering young addict like us,” he waved his hand around the room, “and give him a break when nobody else will.”
A fourth man piled on. “And maybe you’ll help him get his own boat…”
The first man laughed and held up his hands. “Wait a second! I just want to take some people fishing and you guys have me doing this whole other thing.”
I laughed. “Yeah, and I JUST WANTED TO GO FOR A BIKE RIDE. That’s what happens when you open your heart to what Jesus has in mind.”
# # #
You and I provide the dream. We open our hearts, make a ton of mistakes, and learn from them. We keep writing the story of a dream bigger than ourselves.
I just wanted to go for a bike ride. Five years later that bike ride has become a remarkable community called the FRONT RANGE FREEDOM TOUR.
We do fun stuff together to bring hope and freedom to kids rescued from human trafficking. Lots of ways to join us: www.frontrangefreedomtour.org
Dreams for ourselves can ultimately be for His magnificent glory! I so love it when I read one of my daily devotionals only to have the exact same topic pop up in the very next post, message, blog or conversation! That is the case today!
A section from today’s, My Utmost for His Highest; “We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think our dreams are dead. But God comes and says to us ‘Arise from the dead…’ When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to ‘rise from the dead’ and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we ‘get up and get going’. God does not give us overcoming life-He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, ‘Arise from the dead…’, we have to get ourselves up.”
Keep the dream going Rich!
Love ya!