Saturday, July 20, 2013

DO YOU HAVE A DREAM?




It has occurred to me on several occasions that as a child, teenager, and even a young adult I did not have a dream.  I remember very carefully avoiding all things “dreamish.”  I do not have any idea why, except that I had a very deep inferiority complex.  I figured that my life was enough of a failure for me without adding to it dreams that were destined to fail as well.

Then, today, I heard a discussion about the “lucky people” in life vs the “unlucky.”  One line of thinking considered that people made their own luck by sheer force of attitude, getting up every morning with a smile and great expectations for the day.  The other seemed to follow the idea of “those who dreamed of what they wanted to have in their lives and set their minds and feet to reaching that goal” were the ones who actually achieved and there was no luck involved at all.  No dreams unfortunately means no goals.

This comes up now because of a recent sermon which discussed how God sees us compared to how we see ourselves.  The example used was that of a caterpillar and a butterfly.  When tested, caterpillar DNA is butterfly DNA.  The caterpillar is a butterfly even though it cannot fly and does not look beautiful like a butterfly. 

I cannot help but wonder if the caterpillar was able to think and emote, would it be as disillusioned with its own life as I always have been with mine?  Would it see only the plainness and seemingly endless nothingness of life as many of us do?  It surely would not know that better things would come and that it would be beautiful to all one day.  It surely would not dream of making that happen by simply walking the path ahead of it.

The point of the allegory was that God sees us as butterflies even though we are still caterpillars and we should see ourselves that way, too.   Through the blood of Christ we are made new.  Our new birth, which we tend to think of as an allegory, is an actual fact.  When we receive Christ as our savior, our DNA changes.  No scientist may be able to prove that, but God knows it and He knows it well.  We are not only empowered to live a life fully different from our old life, God is enabled to see us only through the blood of Christ, a shield that makes us beautiful in His sight while protecting us from His wrath.  We are seen to be as beautiful as Christ because we are seen through Christ.

I can think of reasons why this is and should be, but I can also counter every single one of them.  It is easy to laugh at that and shrug it off because we all know that we are beautiful in Christ and that we have full hope of one day being with Him… etc.  But, the truth is, there are many of us out here to whom these promises are cloudy and not quite applicable in our daily lives.  We have tremendous reservations about the capabilities of achieving dreams.

Yes, I know and they know that these thoughts come from Satan not from God.  But these are life long inhibitions for us and a life long struggle.  We all have triggers that bring on the struggles, mostly having to do with our own impressions of what we seem be, or what our value actually is to others around us.  And when we are struck with these doubts about our selves and our self worth, the pain is very real..  A knife in the gut is a knife in the gut.  Even if we can pray our way out of the depths that we suddenly find ourselves in; even if the knife is removed in a matter of minutes the pain is very real and lingers long after.

Now I have a picture to call on to help me realize how God sees me whenever I begin to fall.  But I suspect that I, and some of my friends and yours, could use some serious support and prayer over this situation. Therefore…  May we all find the will and desire to see ourselves as God sees us and become more excited about our own lives as we live them out for Him and Him alone.  And may we dream of great possibilities no matter where we are in life with Him: at the beginning, in the last hour or so, or somewhere in the middle on our way to seeing Him soon.  “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”  Hug us tight this day and use us for spreading your love as a blessing to others.

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