I love dreaming. I think I am an anointed dreamer. Not just the dreams you have when you're asleep, but the dreams you have for the future, the "God-dreams", the future yet-to-be, the essence of things not yet seen.
And because I love to dream of the future, I am passionate about having people do that too. I believe too that God created us with the ability to dream of a future unseen. I believe the Bible teaches again and again that it is important for us to always have dreams and a vision for the future. Having a vision for the future restrains us from destruction, self or otherwise, as it gives us hope and a reason to keep living such that we see our dreams fulfilled.
As a pastor, especially while I was a youth pastor, I taught, urged and exhorted people to dare to dream, to have dreams and to move towards their dreams. Especially young people - for that is the prime time for them to dream about their future. I get minutely frustrated when I meet people without dreams, and constantly push them to explore the reasons they are afraid to dream, and to deal with those reasons so they have wings to fly towards their future.
And this is the problem I have.
After spending the past 15 years or so constantly inspiring people to dream, I have come to a seeming screeching halt. I have moved fast and constant in the past few years, passionate about having people think beyond the present, but I must admit that as I have moved swiftly along this road, the sights along the way are beginning to worry me. At first, I noticed just one or two, but over time, the recurrences are now giving me reason to think again if what I had been doing and saying is indeed helping.
The worrying sign along the way is this - there are too many dreamers and not enough doers.
I guess this would have taken me time to discover, for to bring people to a point where they would actually be able to have dreams would take time. But the nagging thought I have is, how many of these people are actually even doing something about what's on their hearts and spirits? I see a growing number becoming experts at dreaming, and stopping there. They love to wax lyrical about their lofty visions and ideas, but that's about all. They put on an appearance of being future-minded and noble, but show no signs of ever actually being willing to make the sacrifices necessary for their dreams to come true.
Now I must qualify that I'm not saying we are the ones who do it all - God ultimately provides all that's necessary for His dreams to come true. What I'm talking about is the inability and unwillingness, and even arrogance to think that dreaming in itself is the lofty end.
I'm decreasing my speed and taking time to look deeper at the signs around me. Young people who once impressed me greatly with their brave dreams are now reduced to theoretical dreamers. 10, 15 years down the road, I see little signs of them growing beyond the hypothetical. Sadly, more and more who started as great dreamers, stopped there.
I have some inkling of why this is so, but I'm not convinced I know the exact reasons. I just know that while I'm taking stock of my life at this juncture, these observations will help me to recalibrate my message for the next 40 years of my life.
And hopefully by the end of the next 40 years, I will see great dreamers building great realities.
1 comment:
Post a Comment