I Stopped Dreaming Today

Wake Up!

I stopped dreaming today by finally accepting something I refused to believe my entire life, I am not special. All my life I have been a dreamer believing I had some sort of destiny, I confess that this has been perhaps a procuring cause of my unhappiness in life. I realized my mortality, that I have perhaps wasted a lot of energy hoping and believing in a transcendent dream. Coming to grips with my mortality brought me to a moment of clarity, there is a finite amount of time we are on this planet, and then we are gone, eternity awaits us, but we will never again be accessible in this place.

In the past few years, I have said goodbye to a lot of people in my life, people that I loved and admired, people that believed in me, but they are gone, forever, never to walk this earth again. I now get it, what is important in life is not the dream, but the reality, showing up, owning up, doing the right thing, being loyal, honest, honoring, and most of all being faithful.

Dreams Are Idols

Dreams really are idols. We set up this idol in our hearts and call it a dream. I had dreams, I dreamed of being in love, and having it last, and tried many times. I think maybe my standard for happiness never included contentment. I have witnessed many people lose the love of their lives over and over, to illness, Alzheimer's, death, divorce, you name it, in the end, they are alone. We all end up alone, being alone was for a long time my biggest fear. I faced it over the past few years, I used to fear dying alone, but now I see the truth, we all die alone, when our time comes, no one can come with us, even if we romance some ideology, when we go, we go alone.

Stop Dreaming, Start Being

Stop dreaming, start being, be present at the moment, intervene when people are suffering, just live, be helpful, be comforting, be capable, and always be faithful. The true tragedy in life is wasting it on things that are unimportant. I remember my youth, how misguided I was, how I had dreams that were not based in anything real, I thought I would be a great musician, I thought I would be happily married to an adoring wife, I thought I would be a very successful businessman, I thought I would be a great writer, then I thought I would be a great teacher, speaker, you name it. Now I see myself indulging idealism in so many things I chased in life. But now, this fresh perspective didn't kill my dreams, I just realized chasing my dreams is a meaningless pursuit. There is self-deception in chasing that idealistic situation, that perfect relationship, or that deal of deals, it is all fleeting, as Solomon wrote, it is simply meaningless. Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 calls it “Chasing after the wind.” 

Someone is going to read this and think he is being negative, may quip don't give up your dreams. What we should be doing is the opposite, we should be pursuing one thing and one thing only, believing God. Not just believing in God, but believing God by an unwavering commitment to reality, what is real, what is true. Jesus stated his purpose "For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice..." John 18:37. 

Seek Reality, By Seeking Truth

I ask myself this question, what am I doing? There is a passage where the Apostle Paul is saying let go of the past, and then do this one thing, think on this one thing, and then he lists them: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" Philippians 4:8. Did you catch that? "whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good..." That list is interesting because it forces me to ask the question: Are my dreams true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report? Suddenly my dreams and desires are filtered through the lens of a different light, once my motives are illuminated by the truth, suddenly the true nature of my dreams is revealed, my dreams are the glorification of self. Let us be honest with ourselves, our dreams, of what we have been sold to pursue in life by the world are really about us, our happiness, comfort, and obsession with feeling good all the time, these have become the idol of our hearts and minds. 

What do you want to be in life? For the believer, the answer is universal; be faithful, be honest, be true, be just, lovely, be present, there is a lot to unpack in that sentence, perhaps it is worth thinking about.