Dreaming of the Future

Sometimes having little kids is like being in college.  You get new roommates all the time.  And sometimes you even wake up with unexpected guests on your couch.  So often the rotation of which kid gets scared and who needs Mom and who needs Dad is a huge mix up.  You wake up in the morning half sleep-deprived, and try to gain clarity of which one you helped last night.  Monday morning I woke up and Gavin was sleeping with me.  Jacob said in his whisper voice, “I got to let him go.”  I said, “What?”  “Dad I got to let the butter go,” Jacob whispered.  I responded,

 “What are you saying?”  Jacob repeated, “I got to let the butterfly go.”  With my mind barely awake, I said, “Ok.”  Then I thought about stopping him and telling him to wait until everyone got up.  But I couldn’t get my body to move.  When I came downstairs I asked him,  “Jacob, was the caterpillar a butterfly in your box?”  He said, “No Dad, I just dreamt that.” I smiled and thought about how amazing he is dreaming about the future.  I then vividly imagined him in his dream seeing this beautiful butterfly in the cage that needed to be released, and he was going to rescue it.  Suddenly I was taken back to what it meant to be five, able to see the world like that, and not have your dreams plagued by what you have to do the next day.  I reflected on my own dreams that night.  I dreamt that I was in a store and Tom Koenig was calling me to have me sign papers.  He finally found me and told me everyone was looking for me, and that my cell phone didn’t work in that store.  In the dream, Tom asked me if I always hung out there.  I remembered the details as we were headed to the Cardinal game, but we had time to kill, so we stopped by some stores.  For some reason I was buying jeans, but all along I was worried about the time, wanting to get to the game early enough with the boys.

I share that last part because even the fun stuff in life often becomes a responsibility.  Sure, buying new houses, caring for people as pastor, and certainly loving my kids are all great things.  But there is something carefree and trusting in a dream like Jacob’s.  And the cool thing is that once he realized it was just a dream, he moved on and took it for what it was worth.  But the amazing thing is that this little boy was dreaming of a caterpillar turning into a beautiful butterfly.  Dreaming of the future when we are young seems so easy.  Just ask kids what they want to do when they grow up.  Their answers will certainly not involve adult-like constraints.  Kids look at the future and only see its possibilities.

Pentecost is all about possibilities and the empowerment to dream.  God was giving the disciples the Holy Spirit; sending them out to see the future--the future that for so many years was confirmed in Jesus Christ and His saving grace.  Now God was enabling them to dream about what this meant for them and for the Church.  It meant having the ability to speak in tongues; to perform miracles; and certainly to watch people change from Ordinary People into Extraordinary Servants of Christ.

Dreaming about the future is the fun part.  When I came to Mt. Calvary I began to dream of its future.  I never banked on putting in a new parking lot as our first endeavor, but let me tell you, I also never imagined all the compliments we would receive because we did the parking lot so well.  Yet, as pastor, I also didn’t want it to stifle the dream of all the plans I had for our church.  My dream was of a church in Brentwood reaching out to the community and to the young adults who live in the area.  Sometimes all of our adult worries seem to diminish what Jesus has for us to dream about--what His Word can do.  Sure, we need to be realistic and also understand our responsibilities, but at the end of the day what if we were like little children waking up with the dream of what beautiful butterfly God is going to release next?  This season is a time to dream again, and I am excited for us to do that dreaming together.