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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
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.
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
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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