The trouble with dreaming

I wonder how many dreams have gotten people into trouble.

I have a dream today...that little black boys and black girls will join hands together with little white boys and white girls. I have a dream that there would be no more children sold into the sex trade. I have a dream, women stuck in the porn industry would find value in who they are without having to sell their bodies. I have a dream, the church would truly be a hospital for sinners where the smell of cigarette smoke would be a sweet aroma because of the souls of men and women who were walking through our doors. I have a dream that mental illness would be healed and the weight of depression would be lifted from our souls. I have a dream the love of junior high and high school kids was so rampant in my church that I would no longer have to pull teeth to find people to serve. I have a dream, we would be just as present in the public high schools as we are in our academies. I have a dream...

It seems to me the people who truly embrace their dreams live the most amazing and passionate lives. We always here the stories of the amazing things they have accomplished. There are books written about them, by them, and sold like hotcakes. The truth is most of them went though an awful lot of trouble getting to the place where they can actually live their dreams. Some like Martin Luther King Jr. don't even survive the pursuit.

Gen 37 warns us again of the danger of dreams. These aren't even dreams Joseph came up with on his own. These are dreams given to him by God. He shares them and jealousy grows to the point he is thrown into a cistern and sold into slavery. Now I know the rest of the story, it all works out, he ends up in charge of all of Egypt. But in this chapter all we know is dreams get you in trouble.

This can go either one of two ways, dreams can been seen as too dangerous to even think about let along have and God is to dangerous right along with them. This reaction inspires fear and a desire for the status-quo. If we can just keep things the way they are, then we will be safe. We can spend the rest of our lives tending the family flocks and everything will be fine. Sure God has given me these dreams, but I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. The problem with this path is everything would not have been fine. Famine would have eventually come and Joseph's family would have starved.

The other perception is to see this horrible story as an encouragement. Living ones dreams, living ones call from God can start out horribly difficult. To be despised by your family, your church, and have strangers more than willing to take advantage of you. But somehow God will see us through. This is the way living great God given dreams begins.

So when we feel stuck, when we feel despised or not listened too. When dreams seem so far out of reach. We can realize this is the way living a dream begins so we might just have a great God given dream. The bible promises in the last days God's spirit will be poured out. Young men will dream dreams and old men will see visions. The dreams are coming. They won't be easy to begin, but God will see them through. Somehow.

If you are against the wall today, if you are in the pit today, if you are suffering from the jealousy of others today. I hope, as we submit our lives to God, you would find yourself at the beginning of a God given dream.