THE POINTLESS NATURE OF DREAMING

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Dreaming instead of doing is foolishness, and there is ruin in a flood of empty words.

Ecclesiastes 5:7a (The Living Bible)

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Definition - Dream, noun:

1:  a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep.

2:  an experience of waking life having the characteristics of a dream such as:

a: a visionary creation of the imagination :  daydream

b: a state of mind marked by abstraction or release from reality: reverie

c: an object seen in a dreamlike state: vision

3:  something notable for its beauty, excellence, or enjoyable quality.

4. a: a strongly desired goal or purpose. b: something that fully satisfies a wish. 

The towering ship was tied next to a pier. It was black with accumulated dirt, a sign it had not been at sea for awhile. I was transiting inside the ship past people either working or waiting in line for a ship’s service. My transit took me through a door to the outside and I was several decks above the brow that would lead me ashore and so I traveled down a series of stairways to get there and then walked off the ship.

As I stepped onto the pier, I walked a short distance and saw a bunch of men who were making train tracks out of cinder blocks. One man wielded a special tool that looked similar to a pick axe but when he would swing it down, it would cut a groove in the cinder block, a groove which the train could travel in. The others were laying the blocks one against the other, forming a long cinder block track.

The next thing I remember, I woke up and then realized it was a dream. Of course it was a dream. I mean, who has ever seen a train track made out of cinder blocks or any tool that could be swung by a man and cut a perfect groove in the blocks. And no work of this kind would be found in close proximity to a ship like the one I was on, or any other for that matter.

Dreams are wacky aren’t they? We all have them and at times, they can be really crazy. Still at other times, they can downright scare us. There have been more than a few nights when I woke up and was glad I did to escape a dream I was in. It was a comfort to come back to reality. Maybe you can relate.

But dreams aren’t confined to our sleeping hours. Many people dream while they are wide awake. Here are a few examples:

A young man loves to play football. He practices formally and informally all the time, more than he takes time to study in school. He is fixated on becoming a professional football player someday and being on television like the players he watches every week when the games are on television. He dreams of a day when he will make millions of dollars and be able to afford everything he could ever want, a far departure from the scant finances his family has. His world revolves around this pursuit so much that it’s all he cares about and all he thinks about.

A woman longs to get into a relationship with someone they can hold and love forever. They sit around and fantasize about it all the time, yearning to have the kind of love they see on television and the movies and the kind of man they see having it. Every day they go without someone is a day they feel empty but yet they haven’t given up. They start to do whatever they have to do to get noticed by someone with the hope that they might be able to lure love into their life and make their dreams come true.

A person has played the guitar since they were young and loves music, especially rock and roll. They practice all the time and play in a local band in small bars and outdoor locations but this isn’t where they would like to be. They long to be on the big stage every night in a different city playing before thousands upon thousands of screaming adoring fans who idolize him and the other band members. He imagines living a luxurious lifestyle of the rich and famous with no holds barred like the rock stars he has worshipped growing up.

Aren’t these dreams just like the ones we have in our sleep? And admit it, we all have spent time thinking about real things we desire, maybe very similar to the ones I mentioned.

Here’s the thing about all this. Whether we’re asleep or awake, dreaming is pointless. This isn’t my opinion. This is the truth spoken in God’s word today.     

Dreaming instead of doing is foolishness. Ecclesiastes 5:7a

Don’t misunderstand this verse. For God’s word isn’t saying that dreaming is foolish if we don’t do something about trying to achieve what we dream for. It’s saying that when we sit around and spend time dreaming, we are not actively focused on carrying out what He wants us to do.

Look at the definition of dreaming and you can see the issues with it, issues that God is not pleased with.

First, dreaming takes us away from reality. When we dream, we find ourselves released from reality and that is not where the Lord wants us to be. Imagine if Jesus had just sat around and dreamed all day about His resurrection and being set free from the world He entered to live in. He would have been detached from the reality of a world in need. People would not have been healed or taught or loved or pardoned while hearing the good news of salvation.

We don’t live in a fantasy world. We live in a real world with real people who have real needs that the Lord wants for us to address. He doesn’t want us to just sit around and wish for things we will never have. No, He wants for us to be His hands and feet, going where He wants us to go and doing what He wants us to do.

And that is simply the second problem with dreaming. It takes us away from doing what God wants us to do. Look at any command the Lord gives and they are action words. One look at the final tasking Jesus gave proves this:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Matthew 28:19-20

Go. Make. Baptize. Teach.

These are words that call us to do something, not sit around and dream.

When we accept Jesus as Savior and commit ourselves to live as He did, we are not to be idle. There is too much to be done, too many people who need to experience His love, and too many lost souls who need to come to know Jesus. And there isn’t too much time for any of us to get this work done. There is no time to waste on dreaming. We need to be people who do instead of dream.

The final problem with dreams is that they are focused on our own desires. Go back to the scenarios for a moment.

All the youth can think about is football and making it big.

All the woman can think about is getting a man to share life with and make her happy.

All the musician focuses on is making it big and experiencing its associated fame.

Ask yourself, where is God’s will in all this? Where is the motivation to seek His guidance and direction, the yearning to please Him in the way we live?

Friends, God despises us when we make ourselves the center of life. In self worship, we serve our own needs and do what we want to fulfill what we want. God is not in the equation and He will not stand for that nor should He. We were made to worship and serve Him and Him alone. He wants us to make His desires our own and when we do, we can go forth knowing that we will meet our goals because they are the same as His and God’s will is always going to be done. It’s the only 100 percent achievement rate we’ll ever have in doing things in life.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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