Heart Tracks - When He's The Dream

"In the last days God said, 'I will pour out My Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams." Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17

In my last writing, I wrote about when our dreams die. In this one, I want to speak about the Dream that never will. The above scripture was preached by Peter upon the pouring out of His Holy Spirit at Pentecost. He quoted from the prophecy made by Joel hundreds of years before which predicted this event. It's a beautiful passage but there is something in it that is so easy to overlook. Sons and daughters prophesying, and young men seeing visions is readily accepted by us. Such things seem to belong to youth. But old men (and women) dreaming dreams? Old age is the time for reflection, looking back, is it not? The future belongs to the young, not the old....isn't that so? No, it isn't. Not in His Kingdom. In fact, it may well be that the best and greatest dreams are dreamed by the old, and I say that not just because I find myself among them.

I think this is so because as we grow older, we grow, or at least should grow, closer to and more aware of Him than ever before. Perspective changes. What we think truly matters changes. We begin to see that many of our "dreams" were not really His dream for us. And He definitely has a dream for us. He initiated it when He created us. He put it into our heart and then set about seeking to bring it to fruition, to reality. If it is not being realized in us, I think it's because we have spent so much of our time and energy pursuing much lesser dreams that originated with us, and not Him. The beautiful thing is that even years spent pursuing the wrong dreams cannot stop Him from bringing about His dream in us. If we'll have it. If we're willing to share in it. When that happens, we are then able to pass that dream along to those who are to come after us. So many of whom are pursuing the wrong dreams themselves.

What I'm finding out in my own walk is that the dreams I now dream are all centered on Him. He, Christ, is the dream. It's so much less about me and so much more about Him. John the Baptists words, "I must decrease so that He may increase" become more real all the time. It's not about my realizing my goals and achievements. It's about laying hold of Him and receiving all of Him that I am able to. It's about realizing that when that starts to happen, the dreams change, and it becomes a case of sharing that dream with others. Others of every age and gender. What I once thought of as great dreams, seem so small in comparison to knowing Christ as He wishes to be known. Paul wrote of how he longed to "apprehend that for which Christ had first apprehended Him." Of laying hold of all that Christ first laid hold of Him for. Paul's dream was not just to take the gospel to the gentiles. It was not just to establish churches throughout Asia Minor. It was to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. All he did flowed out of that dream. And it is still flowing to us 2000 years later. The dream for Him was Christ alone. That dream remained alive in him in his prison cell and before the executioner's sword. It's a dream he sought to pass on to all who came after him. Is it a dream that has taken hold of you and I?

I find myself dreaming that dream more and more. Part of that dream is that in some small way, through these writings, and whatever ministry is for me today, those who read and hear will lay hold of that dream, that Christ, as He and His dream lay hold of you.......Everything changes when He becomes the dream.

Blessings,
Pastor O