Our Hopes and God's Hopes

            I would like to offer you up one of the biggest dreams I have. I have a dream to preach at a little chapel in Durham. Now the likelihood of me preaching at this chapel is slim to none for the time being, but the dream still remains. Now this chapel isn’t very small, in fact it’s quite large and on the campus of Duke University. I often wonder what that day will be like, what I might wear, where I might have my family sit… But then I come back to reality, the God I know in Jesus Christ called me to be a preacher, not a fashion model. The God I know that was revealed to Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebecca called me to proclaim the Gospel, not decide seating charts to where my family might be shown off at such an auspicious occasion.        

            Friends it is good to have dreams. It is right to have a world in which dreams are the foundation of reality. But people of God in a world where dreams are not of God, how can reality be of God? I’m reminded of those verses in 1 Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” What if our dreams take the same reality as love? If we do not dream the dreams of God, we are not dreaming the right way.

           This week, offer yourselves, all of yourselves to God. Whether your dream is to preach at Duke Chapel or your dream is to be the next person in space, make that dream a dream of holiness, one that is in it for the right reasons. Then in God’s almighty power, God will bless that dream and make it fruitful. I might never preach in the cathedral like structure that I have come to love, and that’s ok (though if you, the wonderful people of Statesville had anything to say about it I would, and for that I am forever grateful.) The reason it’s ok I might not get to preach there is because I know that deep in my heart no matter what happens God is using God’s power and abilities in and through me.

            If God is truly who we know God to be then God takes our hopes and our dreams, our fears and our failures into consideration. That in no way means that I should plan on preaching at that chapel next Sunday, but that does mean I should cultivate the skills God has given me so if that day ever does come, I will be ready. May we all prepare for what God has in store for us.