Wanna Make Your Dreams Come True?

Lots of people talk about their dreams.  Usually, it's how their dreams aren't coming true and they won't.  They're sucked into this never ending circle of dreaming and being disappointed. 

How does it happen like that and how do you change the cycle to be dreams and success?

A dream without action is nothing.  It's just a fantasy.  Even if you're praying, unless you're going to get a straight up miracle from God, a dream without action is simply time wasted.

What I have found is that people get into cycles of dreams and disillusion.  They dream a great big dream and hope and pray and nothing happens.  Then they get discouraged.  Then they dream again and the cycle repeats.  Often the dreams get bigger and the disappointments get greater.  It starts to taint their world, color what they see.  And suddenly all their life is a big fat unhappy moment.  Everything is about how they are loosing and not getting the prizes and rewards or even what they've tricked themselves into believing they deserve.

Thinking about deserving something is a scary place to be.  It's a place to be very cautious.  It can slide into entitlement.  And for me, I'd say, we really don't deserve anything.  We're not really entitled to anything.  We can sure want things, desire them and so on, but deserve, well, I think maybe only God can handle that one and I am not going to be the human that tells God He's doing it wrong or not giving me what I deserve or what I think I need or what I feel I'm entitled too.  No way.  I'm not going there.  Because I know what I deserve from God and I know instead I receive grace, mercy, forgiveness and love. 

Now, I wasn't saying something like you shouldn't get paid for working, not at all.  That's not what I was getting at. 

So what about those people that seem to have the golden ride?  You know the people, the ones who seem to always have their dreams come true. 

I'm going to tell you that they see the world through different eyes.  They are hopeful.  These are people who are optimistic.  Optimistic and practical. 

It's simple what they do.  Really.  We can all have their success if we want it.

They take those dreams and make them goals.  They just move the category or change the label if you will.  They look at the dream and see it for what it is, a final outcome of something.  Then, they break it down into it's steps and accomplish it one step at a time.  They realize and recognize that reaching these dreams/goals is going to take some real hard work on their part and time committed to the task.  They pray in addition to all this hard work. 

Am I good at this?  Nope.  Not at all.  But, I do finally understand it and just having that understanding has brought me some peace.

It helps me to not get caught in feelings and be able to see things for what they are.  Almost every dream can be pushed into a goal and worked towards. 

I'd even argue that something that is a dream of yours that you can't make into a goal with a plan of action is something that really shouldn't be a dream for you.  It's more like a wish. 

I've had just enough of the dreams pushed into the goal category and reach relative success in their completion or accomplishment to make me believe this is a part of how life goes. 

I'm sure to many of you this just isn't news, but to some of you, maybe it's an ah ha moment. 

Pick a dream of yours.  Break it down into it's steps and start working.  Work hard, without giving up, without giving in to all the cheap excuses that we all come up with when the job is hard and thankless.  Work hard and then when you reach your goal, be sure to look around at all those people you believed had the golden lucky streak in their lives.  The ones that live a charmed life where everything goes their way and it seems simple and easy.  I bet if you look at them real hard, real honestly, you'll find some people who really work hard to get to where they are and what they've accomplished. 

A Church Fail?

I'm noticing something interesting lately and I'm not really sure exactly what I think about it, but I'd love to get some discussion going around here. I think it's a bit of a big topic and that there are going to major underlying issues that led to what I'm noticing now. I'd say what's got my attention is symptoms of something bigger that I don't quite have my finger on yet.

So let's get started.

What I'm noticing is a certain disconnect in the land of Christianity, or at least modern American church Christianity. There are some people who have crossed my path in the last few months that have shared some interesting stories. They told me their tales of how they came to the place of leaving their church and more interestingly how the church responded. Now, I'd say these aren't big important people in the church, but shouldn't we all, to an extent, be peers in the church. A novel idea, I guess. I'm sure someone will give me the Biblical lecture as to my incorrectness. Thanks for the references.

These are the sort of people who are easily dismissed. And let's be honest, there are just groups of people that we love to over look. We all do it. We each have our own groups of people that we over look and dismiss, whether it's the business man dismissing the 20 somethings or the jocks dismissing the preps or the stay home moms dismissing the working moms.

On the other hand, though, these are the reliable people, the loyal people. These are the sort of people who volunteer over and over and over even though they're getting the blank stare from the pastor who, after having them as a key volunteer for years on end, ought to know more about them than their first name, if they even know that.

These kind of people, what I'll call the basic body of the church people, for lack of a better label, are beginning to leave their churches. And who can blame them. They're burnt out. They're under appreciated. They're misunderstood and in spite of knowing a lot of church people and having a lot of church friends, they're lonely. The friends they have aren't deep. The friends they have a great at giving all the correct Biblical advice that allows them to stand in the position of righteous Christian church goer, but where are the people being real? Where are the people wanting to dig into something together?

The basic body people are believers, they're rule followers, they're not the sort that leave churches easily or willy-nilly because they no longer like the song format or the new and improved bulletin. These are people who spend many months in prayer. They seek out opinions and council about whether or not to leave their church. They stay long after they believe they've come to a decision about leaving.

It's interesting in two fronts. The most obvious interest is why are these people, the basic body people, leaving their churches. The second interest, the one I wonder about more, is the reaction from those in the church at large to those who are leaving. We'll call this group of people in the church, the followers, for lack of a better term.

I'm thinking followers because they are typically the ones that know all the Sunday school answers and can easily regurgitate any amount of mostly sound Biblical back up they need. I'm not about to speculate on their believer-ness status. That's between them and God, as is most of this in reality. These are the people who participate in a lot of stuff and are by all visible accounts great church going people.

Maybe, I personally, am just tired of the simple church going breed. I'm greedy. I want, I expect so much more from being a believer.

As I have watched these stories unfold and listened to the tales told over the last few months, I'm really struck by the response of the follower group. They are almost condemning these basic body people for their choice to move on to another church. They heap on advice and evidence and scripture. They actually pile on guilt.

Why?

Is it fear? Are we confused about the body of the church and what the church really is? Is it a power thing?

I almost forgot, there's another thing that I think ties into all this, but I'm not sure how exactly. For myself, I'm not unhappy exactly, with my current church, but there are things... I find myself, seeking out extras. I will confess to downloading podcasts of sermons from other places that I find to be so much more interesting, challenging, whatever and I wonder if that's a "wrong" thing to do?

Talk to me kids, what do you think? Tell me your story and your experience. I know there is no shortage of opinion out there on this one, so let's talk this weekend, shall we? See you in the comments.