Tell Me I’m Dreaming

Scripture: Genesis 37.1-4, 12-28; Romans 10.5-15


Joseph was seventeen years old. He was at the height of his obnoxious powers. He loved telling his brothers about the dreams he’d been having. They involved some inferior physical objects (his brothers) bowing down to a superior physical object (him). It was all very Jungian. What it also was, well, it was infuriating to Joseph’s brothers. The kid, being the youngest, was already the favored child. Joseph didn’t get his brother’s hand me downs, he got new stuff. And then the dreams. Joseph was asking for trouble.

Of course, from his perspective, he hadn’t done anything. He couldn’t help it if he was the youngest and dad’s favorite. He didn’t ask for these dreams, either. They just came to him. Funny thing about dreams – sometimes they describe your deepest longings, things that are already in you, other times they reveal things that could be true of you. But dreams are not always easy to follow. Dreams take indirect, circuitous routes on the way to completion – if they are completed at all.

Woody Allen once said, “If I could just see a miracle. Just one miracle. If I could see a burning bush, or the seas part, or my uncle Sacha pick up a check.”

Dreams are like miracles in the sense that they don’t get much respect from a lot of people. Those who do respect dreams are looked upon with suspicion. To call someone a dreamer is usually not a complement.

My nephew has a friend named Zach, who, from what I hear, is a bit of a dreamer. Now, I don’t know Zach, but I know his parents, played basketball with his dad and went to church with his mom. Zach has a reputation for talking big. He always has big plans. He dresses the part too. He’s a sharp dresser – his peers are wearing t-shirts and jeans, he’s wearing red pants and silk shirts. Another generation might have called him a bit of a dandy. Zach has said that he wants to go into politics eventually, maybe run for governor. His immediate plans involved law school. His test scores didn’t encourage him in that direction, so now he plans to go into podiatry. My sister overhead some ladies at Zach’s church talking about him. They said, “What is with that Zach? First he’s going to do one thing, then he’s going to do another!”

What’s funny to me about those comments is that Zach is only 23 years old. He’s allowed to change his mind about a career. But because he’s a dreamer, he comes under suspicion. “Get yer head out of the clouds.” “Set realistic goals.” “Get a real job.”

These are the practical bits of wisdom that we impart, or force feed to our young, when maybe God is trying to tell them something else. Maybe God doesn’t always want us to be “practical,” or to be “realistic”. Maybe our idea of realistic is just too small and mean. Maybe God’s reality is bigger and better than our imaginings!

I mean who would of thought that Joseph, the youngest son of an obscure herdsmen in a backwater country would somehow end up as de facto ruler of the most powerful country in the world? His brothers didn’t think it. Neither did his parents. Probably Joseph didn’t really see that coming either. But he had a dream and he followed it.

Now, as I said earlier, dreams can take pretty indirect and unexpected paths to fruition. And not every idea is a dream in this sense, and not every dream is worth pursuing. For example, I used to have a recurring dream in which I was the star of a basketball team and I would routinely go down court, leap high in the air, and slam dunk the basketball. Just like Michael Jordan. I used to have that dream pretty often. But is that a dream worth pursuing? No. It gets less and less likely that will ever happen. Don’t get me wrong – I still got game. I got skills. I just can’t jump very high anymore. Well, I never could jump, to be honest with you. And even if I could jump high enough to dunk a basketball and achieve that dream, it’s not that big of a dream.

Charles Swindoll, in his book Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, talks about how Walt Disney was a man who loved a challenge. “Walt would occasionally present some unbelievable, extensive dream he was entertaining. Almost without exception, the members of his board would gulp, blink, and stare back at him in disbelief, resisting even the thought of such a thing. But unless every member resisted the idea, Disney usually didn’t pursue it. Yes, you read that correctly. The challenge wasn’t big enough to merit his time and creative energy unless they were unanimously in disagreement.”

I don’t recommend universal opposition as the starting point for every dream, but when there is some disagreement, some questioning, some controversy, then you know, maybe, just maybe, we are onto a dream here worthy of us.

A dream worth our attention is more than an idea or a fantasy, it is obviously a gift of purpose from God. It something that calls us and compels us. It is something that will often bless many people and further the Kingdom of God. It is something we work for, sacrifice for, and wait patiently for. This kind of dream becomes a driving vision.

Joseph had to sacrifice a lot for his dream. He lost his family. Or rather his family lost him. He was sold into slavery, taken to a foreign culture, falsely accused of seduction, put in jail, worked hard and faithfully before he ever saw the first realizations of his dreams. But in the end, I bet Joseph said, it was all worth it. The dream was worthy of his life – and Joseph proved worthy of the dream.

Folks, we’ve got to dream once in awhile. And we might as well dream big. Dream something worthy of our attention, worthy of our passion. Bill Hybels challenges his church periodically to think Big Hairy Ideas – things so out there, that if they are ever going to happen it must be from God.

Home Fellowships. Here is an idea that I’m dreaming about, that I hope will develop into a vision for community and small group life. The idea is people meeting in each other’s homes according to general areas and neighborhoods to eat together, talk together, study together and pray together, say once a month for a period of time. What might God do with us in such a time and context? I wonder. Tell me I’m dreaming and I’ll tell you we’re onto something.