Impossible Dreams Part 2

I recently mentioned that impossible dreams, goals, and plans are valuable because they require that we ask and believe, rather than allowing us to think we can accomplish them on our own. There is, however, another great quality about these things.

We tend to eventually get where we’re going. We generally arrive—eventually—at the place to which we are now headed. What we set before us, we most often do achieve, sooner or later. That is great. Great, that is, unless you’re going nowhere and have nothing set before you. In that case, you’ll get nowhere, and that is no fun.

A destination is very handy because, to the degree that we keep our eyes on it, it keeps us headed in the right direction. Our dreams and goals can actually afford us a certain amount of safety, if we keep them safe in our hearts.

I mentioned that my dreams can’t be accomplished by my own efforts, and while that is certainly true, it’s also true that they give a certain amount of direction to my efforts. Over the years (including the years before I "gave up") as I’ve had certain goals in mind, hobbies, jobs, and anything else that didn’t have any bearing on my goals, one by one dropped by the wayside. I do not "rise up early," "sit up late," or "eat the bread of sorrow" in an attempt to bring my dreams to pass, but neither do I fritter away my time on things that are meaningless to me, in light of my destination.

On the other hand, during the couple of years when I had given up, I got entangled in a number of time-wasters—most of them relationships with other people who didn’t have a destination in mind, either. I got entrenched in other people’s problems, I theorized about things that I had no real knowledge of, and I perceived as very important the opinions of people whose lives were just as meaningless as mine was. In a nutshell, I wasted time.

I’ve seen plenty of other people do this, too. I know some who wouldn’t know a long-term goal if it smacked them in the face. I know others who actively avoid any association with anything that even looks like a long-term goal. And I can tell you, they go nowhere. Most of them that I’ve been acquainted with are critical and dissatisfied—just like I was when I didn’t have my sights on something of greater value than me.

We aren’t here just to take up space; therefore we aren’t happy when we’re simply taking up space. We need something to put ourselves into—something that will give form to our substance. Just as God obviously desires for us to be fruitful, so we desire the same thing.

Impossible goals keep us waiting on God, helping us prioritize our lives in the meantime.

If you don’t have an impossible dream, take some time to wait on God, and get one.

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