Below is an old piece I found in my files from nearly a decade ago, but it's one I've never posted here. Enjoy!
Observing people is one of my
favorite things to do. They are an absurd bunch, really, a bizarre
agglomeration of personalities, shapes, and sizes that always strike me as a
bit extraordinary. Where else can you find a species so fascinatingly diverse,
so similar and yet so different?
I am told that all animals can be
told apart from one another, even within a species. To differentiate between
rhinoceroses, one must examine the pattern of wrinkles on the nose. For zebras,
it’s the way the stripes come together at the shoulder.
But let’s be honest. No two rhinos
look different the way any two people look different from each other. Human
beings are somehow set apart, brilliantly bizarre in their uniqueness. We need
not examine wrinkles to distinguish our friends from one another. The entire
pattern of face and shape and manner screams of wild individuality.
It’s the sum of all these peculiar
differences that make people worth watching. Perhaps it’s a strange form of
narcissism, but I never tire of discovering how unbelievably different other
people are from me. Sometimes I would like to be more like the person I’m
observing; other people make me sincerely glad of who I am.
Today I drove down to the local
auto body shop for an oil change. The fellow who owns the place is a recent
acquaintance of mine but a fairly good friend of my grandfather. He’s one of
those people who seems entirely sincere and unpretentious, a rough-edged
character who somehow inspires trust.
His teenage son helps him out at
the shop, and I exchange a few greetings with him. He nods his response, a bit
more subdued today because Rachel, my newlywed bride, is with me. Last time I
was here he opened right up and started talking about drinking and casual sex
and the kind of women he likes. He’s certainly different than I am, but somehow
I can’t help but like him. There’s a rustic earthiness about him that makes him
very real.
I think that part of why I like him
is that he dreams. His dreams right now are a bit self-centered, but he still
hasn’t lost the ability to imagine. His father is the same way, dreaming about
upcoming trips to Italy and Ireland. He
loves castles, he says. So do I. I can’t explain it, but my heart begins to
soar when I see a castle. There’s something akin in our spirits, this dusty
mechanic and I.
And as I observe people, I begin to
notice the boundaries of their dreams. Eventually, people tend to accept the
nature of the reality they’ve been given. My mechanic friend dreams of
traveling to see castles, because, he tells me, it’s now within his means. But
the dreams of children are not quite so restrained. A boy will not only delight
in seeing a castle; a boy will, for a moment, become a heroic knight to defend
those long-deserted ramparts. But this lasts only for a moment, because
children grow up. And in part, these changes are good. We begin to understand
more fully where we are and what we can do. We accept the limits of possibility
and focus on attaining the dreams that are within reach.
However, I believe that most of us
fail to realize that there are dreams of staggering proportions, ambitions of
imaginative zeal, within our grasp even now. I’m not speaking of our own little
dreams and ambitions, the things we do to satisfy ourselves. I’m speaking of a
dream so big that it shatters and reorders all of those things.
The psalmist writes that if we
delight ourselves in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our hearts (Ps.
37:4). Does this mean that God will give us that Caribbean
cruise we’ve been dreaming of? That beautiful new house? I don’t think so. If
we are truly delighting ourselves in the Lord, what will the deepest desires of
our hearts be? They will be for him. We will yearn for more of God, and we will
begin to dream his dreams. The possibilities of this dream are endless. To be
passionately caught up in the desires and the mission of God is beyond anything
our experience can compare to. It is the wildest ride on earth.
Jesus said that the kingdom of God is near. This doesn’t simply mean
that it is close at hand time-wise. I don’t think he’s saying, “Get ready, it’s
coming!” Rather, Jesus is pointing to himself and extending an invitation:
“Here I am! The kingdom
of God is among you! Even
now you can enter in!” It is the unending wonder of this kingdom-life in Christ
that keeps me dreaming.
There is an old missions book on my
shelf with this title: Give Up Your Small
Ambitions. I love those words. They speak of the hope and passion of
finding a bigger ambition, something that will carry me beyond the tyranny of
my own little desires. Sometimes I get so caught up in what I’m trying to do,
in all my petty projects and hopes, that I miss out on the incredible adventure
of joining the missio Dei—God’s
mission. But he calls out to me, over and over again: Give up your small
ambitions! Lay down your nets and follow me! Step out onto these waves and come
and dance through the storm!
This call to begin dreaming God’s
dreams is not just for the unbeliever. Too many Christians, myself included,
settle for far less than we should. C.S. Lewis’ old analogy strikes true: we
are like children content to play in a mud puddle when our Father is offering
us a holiday at the sea. Too many followers of Christ are trudging along on
their own little trails, ignoring the ceaseless call to come and join the
Maker’s dance around the wedding-table.
So what are these dreams? What is
this sacred imagination that gives wings to the soul? It begins, as everything
in the Christian life does, with knowing God. If the truth of Christianity
really is the foundational story of our existence, then to embrace God is to
embrace reality itself. To be alive to God is to be more spectacularly alive
than we could have thought possible. Christ himself said it: “I have come that
they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” When once we begin to
pursue God’s dreams for ourselves and for the world, something within our
hearts will begin to sing. This truly is what we were made for, the image-bearers
of the Almighty God.