Today is a day where we celebrate a man that had a dream. A dream that was bigger than him, bigger than his life, and bigger than the culture that tried to derail it from coming true. I think of one of my favorite lines from a movie is from Pretty Woman, when there is a man at the beginning and end of the movie. He is holding a sign and just keeps repeating, “What’s yo dream? What’s yo dream? Everyone’s got a dream!” One of my all time favorite songs is a song called “Dream” by Priscilla Ahn. I love dreaming. I love people with dreams.
Do you have a dream that you are working towards? Sure you do. Its that thing deep in your heart that you would do if you would stop looking at outside circumstances. What if money was no object? If time was not an issue? If your education was where you wanted it to be? What would you do? Are you afraid of failing? Are you afraid of someone laughing at you? What’s yo dream??
Ok, I am about to offend you so if you are easily offended stop now and go to Joel Osteen’s page where you will not be offended. (Not bashing, just sayin…) Do NOT use your spiritual obligations as dreams. This is not Jerry Springer. Do not get married and tell me your dream is to be faithful. You are supposed to be! Do not have kids and tell me your dream is to take care of them. You are supposed to! Things you are supposed to do because you chose them don’t qualify with me. Let me tell you my dream, and yes those of you that are close to me have heard it a hundred times…go to Joel’s page. I’m kidding…
I dream of one day standing in front of Jesus and he tells me to turn around and look behind me. I see thousands and thousands of people and I know NONE of them. He says to me, “because of your willingness to be obedient to me, all of these people are here. You did the right thing, lived selflessly, loved recklessly, and these people are here indirectly because of someone I influenced through you. None of them were members of the church I let you pastor, but that was never the point.” (Notice Jesus didn’t speak in King James? Okay, I just offended more, man I am on a roll…) This dream drives me, makes me work hard, teaches me that building the Kingdom is way infinitely more important that just building a church. I want that day so bad that we structured Baypointe to give us a chance to help people find a savior in a real way, an unfiltered way, a way that will give them dreams that are bigger than themselves. Then they will go out and change the world.
So what’s your dream? What’s stopping you? Write it down, begin the process, and watch God handle the rest.
Grace.
Ben
Though very well written, the far greater weight of your post was that it challenged me…made me pause…made me reflect and self-evaluate. This will go in my “Uh, excuse me, what exactly ARE you doing?” file. Thanks PB.