Follow My Dream!

FOLLOW MY DREAM

Today our first granddaughter graduated from High School and yesterday from a Community College. Today’s celebration was a hopeful and splendid expression of a promising future for the graduates. Most of them had an idea of what they would like to become. Several weeks ago, I asked one of our grandsons what he would like to become. Without hesitation, he replied, “I will follow my dream.” “Just what shall that dream be like,” I probed? He was not quite certain. It had to do with a job he would love. Yes, how many people do we know that love their jobs? Most people that I had associations with regarded their jobs as a means to an end. Most of them lived in hope of something more accommodating.

I too had a dream in my childhood days in Eastern Poland that now is part of the Ukraine. We were people of the land and I wished for six Arabian Stallions and a beautiful carriage. If war had not come and disowned us, I would have had a chance to realize my dream. However, it was not a practical dream. These horses were not bread for agriculture. Circumstances ended my dream and I learned the hard way to do any job just to survive. That too required that I acquaint myself with more than one skill. I had to learn to handle a plow and a hammer. Both came in handy when I immigrated to Canada, where farmhands and carpenters were needed. Again, circumstances were unkind and this time it took me nine years to outfit for a job I had chosen. It began as a dream but ended as a basic necessity. This job was not to give me satisfaction but to render service to others. I had never intended to become a pastor. It was not a fulfilling dream, but I would not trade it for any other job.

Yes, there are people born with a silver spoon in their mouth and can hunt dreams. There are also those to whom dreams are handed. Our society news does not give us the impression that such people lead satisfactory and fulfilling lives. For them, their dreams are not big enough. Jesus had such a person in mind. He called him “You fool.” This man’s dream was to build huge storages with supplies for a lifetime, only eternity called him prematurely (Luke 12:13-21). For the rest of us, we can and ought to dream. They do keep us going. But, while we do the dreaming, we need bread-producing jobs. In our age, we shall need more than one job. Lasting employers have become an endangered enterprise.

There is one more thing. Good intended people have assured me that God would provide all that I needed to reach my dream. Well, it did not hurt me to sweat and worry more than a little. There were times when I was thankful that I had made it through the day. At the end, we may not find what we were hoping for. In my dreaming, God and I did not see eye to eye; neither did the world in which I live. I could not let my dream get in my way. When I was a lad, my mother reminded me from time to time that dreams were merely bubbles, but bread could keep us going. There is a reason why we ought to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). It could also mean, “Give us a job that puts bread on the table.”