Yesterday was the most amazingly negative day. I hadn’t even noticed my sedate gait when a co-worker bounced up beside me in the photocopier room and said, “So, how you doing, Steve?” Her joy just couldn’t be contained. She said more than once, “Don’t let your light dim, Steve.” I enjoyed the little pep-talk. “Thanks, Hayley!”
Later in the day I was smashed with disappointment and a what’s-the-use kind of mood. The first 24-48 hours after bad news I’m generally pretty fragile. It’d been one of those days.
Then, as sure as if I’d heard it audibly, I got this: “Life is where dreams go to die!”
Wow, even as I slunk into my melancholic nothingness of blahdom, I was astonished as to the negativity of the revelation. It made a lot of sense for me to promise once again, “I’m giving up on this stupid dream,” but my giving up never sticks, because I just cannot sulk for extended periods, and it’s a dream that refuses to die.
Then, today. I understood the revelation:
Life. Is where. Dreams. Go. To die.
Life = truth life, the abundant life, the only life a truly spiritual person would want. It’s the opposite of a living death of nothingness, of denial, of oblivion, and of the facing of lies and dissociation to the truth.
Dreams = too often they become idols and an end in themselves, and our chasing them ends in a nightmare of obsession; we face shattering disappointment, frustration and anger when they don’t materialise. Dreams aren’t meant to torment us. They’re supposed to be a good thing, a miracle come true, the stuff life’s made of.
Death = the Christian way of looking at death is paradoxical. In Christ, there is no life without death occurring first. Jesus’ death on the cross precedes his resurrection. Frustration, disappointment and despair must die before the hope of a dream can come alive. Death must come before eternal life — we must die before we can go to heaven.
Suddenly it occurred to me only one day after a vision that felt like, “give up.”
It wasn’t a “give up” vision at all, though I was convinced it was yesterday.
I had to step into a new day to realise something important. Death must occur before new life can come. The dream must die as an acorn on the forest floor before it can literally spawn much seed to produce many mighty oaks. The dream as it is must die before it tears us away from life.
Don’t be afraid if your dreams appear dead. They must die before they can truly come alive.
And when our dreams have died, we’re suddenly ever more realistic and ready for them to come into being. A true dream cannot be crushed.
Image: Kylie Parker, by kind permission.
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