Dreams Can Come True (Part 1)

I go through phases where I’ll have vivid dreams for a few nights in a row, and then I won’t have a dream for quite a while. Well, none that I remember.

Last weekend was one of those dream filled phases, and I was continually waking up completely bewildered by the things I was dreaming about.

For example:
Random dream #1 – involving a tennis match against Andy Murray. I don’t even play tennis…which was affirmed in the dream because I got blisters on my hands from the tennis racket which meant that I had to do a last minute run to a chemist to get blister plasters so I could still play the match. Only to then get stuck in traffic…because everyone was trying to get to the match…and then get there just in time for the start…when I wake up! Like I said, random!

Random dream #2 – involving a space ship, my family, getting separated from my family and subsequently very lost, fearing that my family had been ‘extracted’ from the space ship and left to float around in deep space and then getting more lost on the two most random of all space ship decks I’ve ever seen – a race course deck (complete with horses) and a massive children’s play area deck. Usually I would’ve enjoyed such an inviting play area but I still needed to find my family…when I woke up!

Now, I’m sure there are people out there who would love to tell me all sorts of interesting facts about my dreams and what they say about me and my unconscious mind. But to be honest, I probably just need to stop eating cheese before I go to bed!

I’m quite grateful sometimes that when I wake up the dream is over and it was just that, a dream. The thought of any of these dreams becoming a reality is, quite frankly, not always welcome and most certainly belongs in Steven Spielberg’s department more than it does in mine.

But I do have dreams that I long to see becoming a reality in my life. They’re not the kind of dreams that occur whilst you sleep, but rather the dreams that are stirred up whilst you are awake. The ideas and hopes that God plants in your heart that gradually grow and develop. These dreams are more than just vivid pictures, random scenes and unusual happenings. These dreams can be a matter of life and death.

I hope to expand on my thoughts on dreams and identify four things which I think play an important part in making our dreams more than just dreams but actual reality. And I hope to encourage you to dream BIG, because we can…because God is BIG.

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Ephesians 3:20-21 (The Message)