Do you have a dream?

I wanted to tell you something that I did not mention yesterday in my article on “Tongues” which is miraculous.  I have an aunt that had cancer of the brain and towards the end of her life she was unable to communicate by speaking, but there was one interesting thing that would happen every time they would start to pray for her, as they prayed she would begin to speak in tongues and would continue through the entire prayer. At the amen when she stopped praying her ability to speak was no longer there. Don’t you think that is wonderful?

I have had dreams that came to pass since I was very young. Of course there are times I have a “bean dream”, but I do know the difference. To tell you the truth, I love having that gift and never take for granted when the Lord uses me in that way. He also gives me the interpretation for dreams, so I kind of identify with Joseph, who was a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams. Daniel also interpreted dreams, and that just happened to have saved his life!

Children have dreams, about their future, until they grow older and someone tells them they can’t accomplish them. When my sister got a full scholarship to Agnes Scott College I actually heard someone say to her in a very sarcastic tone, “Let me know when you graduate from there”. It crushed her tender feelings, but graduate she did, and with a double major, then she continued to study and got her Master’s Degree. A child can take a piece of cardboard and it becomes an airplane, a piece of wood becomes a truck, a rag can be a doll in the hands of a little girl.

My mother, who was the daughter of a very poor preacher, wrapped a rubber band around her big toe and called it her “baby doll”. During the night her parents heard her crying and went to see what was wrong, not knowing that her “doll” was the cause of the pain, her little foot under the covers. When they finally found the source of her pain seeing her purple toe, the “doll” was released.

Children believe you when you tell them something which is why for example, I told them when asked if the shot they were about to get at the doctor would hurt, that yes it would hurt but that I would be right there to hold their hand. A child is born with the faith and love and then learns from experience that people lie, that people with a different color skin, or accent are to be hated.

The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who will rank highest in God’s Kingdom?” Matthew 18:2-5 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.

A song from the Broadway play, “South Pacific” says: You’ve Got To Be Taught to Hate And Fear, you’ve Got To Be Taught from Year To Year, it’s Got To Be Drummed in Your Dear Little Ear you’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught. You’ve Got To Be Taught To Be Afraid of People Whose Eyes Are Oddly Made, and People Whose Skin Is A Diff’rent Shade; you’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught. You’ve Got To Be Taught Before It’s Too Late, before You Are Six Or Seven Or Eight, to Hate All The People Your Relatives Hate; you’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught!

We have to be like children before they’ve known pain and come to God with an open heart and faith that is untarnished by doubt, fear or unbelief. When a person has a dream, a goal they want to accomplish, it takes faith in God knowing that “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” Philippians 4:13 Do you want to be a person that encourages another person’s dream, or would you rather be like Joseph’s brothers and put them in a pit?

If YOU have a dream sometimes the people you are around are too busy only thinking about themselves and their own agenda, to help you. So where does the cycle end? It ends when you go to the Father and ask Him. Become childlike. The disciples tried to make the children leave Jesus alone, but Jesus said: Matthew 19:14  “Let the children alone, don’t prevent them from coming to me. God’s kingdom is made up of people like these.”

He can make your old piece of cardboard become a Jet airplane, a block of wood an eighteen-wheeler, or He can take the rags of your life and make you brand new person! Don’t ever give up your dreams!