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What Do I Dream About?

My daughter comes to my bed in the middle of the night. Not to me, of course. She knows better than that. She sidles up on her mother’s side and curls up fast asleep before my wife knows what’s going on. I wish I had a dollar for every time Jennifer has said to me, “Yeah, I woke up and saw we had a friend. I wonder when she joined us.”

Sigh.

I ask my daughter why she joined us. Bad dreams are the most common answer. I kind of wish one of my kids had been brutally honest and told me they knew they had worn their mother down to the point of total exhaustion during the day. Phase one of their plan complete, they knew they could sneak in at least 2 hours in their parent’s bed before anyone was the wiser.

Better yet, I’d have loved to have woken up just once to the three of them arguing over whose night it was to come in to our bed.

Alas, a bad dream was the culprit 99 times out of 100.

Right now I am having great dreams. It’s not because of any supplement I’m taking. I’m not avoiding snacks after 9 p.m. like I should either. They are not odd dreams either, involving purple man-eating dinosaurs or of sandwiches eating me. My dreams are happening 24 hours of the day, but I’m not sleeping on the job.

My dreams are for the areas of ministry I oversee. I don’t take enough time for this kind of dreaming, but every summer, while planning fall kick-offs, I allow myself to see the difference between what is and what could be. And that is exactly where I am at right now.

Don’t try to talk me out of these dreams. Don’t list the reasons why it won’t work or tell me how we’ve never done it that way. I’m seeing what could be. I’m seeing the growth. I’m seeing the potential. I’m seeing God glorified by the lives changed and the hearts opened and the community encouraged.


I’m seeing what could be, and it looks great. 
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