The rough, eternally scarred hands of a Carpenter reached out toward one who pushed them away. No stranger to suffering, He heard the man’s words as if they were the only words spoken in the universe.”No, My son. This is not the time. That is not the place. Your dreams were not too big for Me. They were too small.”

Dominion,
novel by Randy Alcorn


Dreams. We all have them. Sometimes perhaps they’re far-fetched romantic fairy-tales. Other times nothing but simple caricatures of our imagination. But our dreams are the manifestation of our longings, wishes, prayers and cries of the heart. Dreams are the grounds of our emotions, the basis of our hopes, the reality of our desires.

I’ve heard those who claim dreaming to be a silly waste of time. But I find such a notion debatable. God is the one who placed in us the desires that we have, and to try to piously snuff them out is ludicrous.

Our outlook on life and goal for our future is shaped by our dreams. How can we expect Him to fulfill the desires of our heart when we shun the dreams He has placed there?

We cannot out dream God. He has a purpose for each of our lives, and the dreams He places within us help us to reach His potential for us.

There are those dark times when life shatters into a nightmare, and dreams seem stupid and useless. In our darkest times it is easy to become confused and wonder if we expected too much. Our dreams look stupid and silly, and maybe too big for God. But even in those times of confusion His plan exceeds our own. His dream for us reaches way beyond what our imagination could fathom.

It’s not that our dreams were too big for Him. They were too small. He couldn’t fit in them. Those are the times He has to dash our dreams.

But He will never tell us to stop dreaming. Instead He encourages us to dream on, to follow our hopes where ever they may lead, to find the dawn, and to cling tightly to Him.

Dreaming is our daring hope, and sometimes it’s all we have. In the Bible, Joseph wasn’t afraid to cling to his dream. When everything pointed the other direction, he dared to dream on. It wasn’t until after he was sold as a slave, unjustly made a prisoner for many years, and served a country that was not his own that his dream finally came true.

Dream on. There’s always the promise of the dawn.