Dare to Dream for Him, Dare to Dream for Our Community

Pastor Joe Keenan’s sermon on daring to dream for God made me reflect on my past attitude towards dreams. I used to be one of those realists who saw dreams as a cosmetic superficiality. Are dreams just a lofty pigment of our imagination? Are they just one of those passing faces in a crowd that we forget the moment we turn our heads back?

You see, dreams also do define us. The world we live in places an insatiable premium on materialism. We are scrutinized, assessed and judged by our appearance, intelligence, education level, bank accounts, occupation and so on in an endless list of man-defined indicators. Ambitions, like dreams, are a distant expression of what we wish to achieve in the measurable future but unlike ambitions, dreams have its roots in biblical foundation. God wants us to dream and dream big for Him. God appeared to Jacob (Genesis 28:12-15) and Joseph (Genesis 37: 5-7) through dreams where they received the revelation from Him. Unlike dreams, we can never be satisfied with our ambitions. The businessman who has ambitions of becoming the richest man on earth will never be satisfied with his wealth. With each passing day, his chase for the money trail will intensify and his ambitions will expand with his ego.

Ambitions will only encourage us to seek more and more for ourselves. We will be oppressed by our ever-lasting greed and desire to be better than before. Sometimes, we are stifled by it. Sometimes, we even dread it. Sadly, through the process of conforming to society’s pressure and demands, we have mistaken our ambitions for our dreams. Ambitions only fuel temporal materialism, which further inflames our ambitions in a downward spiral of a bottomless pit. According to Ecclesiastes 5:10, “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.” Ambitions should not define us by dictating the way we choose to live.

Dreams however, will set us free. Through dreams, we build a greater tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves. God truly calls his people to dream of the extraordinary and His dreams for us are ways above the comfortable limits of our imagination. The high-powered executive who quits his glamorous position and forgoes a cushy monthly pay to fulfill his dream of starting a school for the intellectually challenged. The Irish rock star who works feverishly to attract international support for the cause against poverty. The opposition leader who languishes in house arrest and displays admirable defiance towards the ruling junta in her country for the sake of her people’s fundamental rights. These are normal people with extraordinary dreams who chose to work for their dreams, responding to a greater calling in life and living a life worth living.

Fortunately, dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. Dreams do define us in a way unimaginable by sheer logic. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake, living our dreams.

Pastor Joe Keenan’s message on dreams rekindled my desire to become an economist to help the poor in impoverished nations. I have always dreamt since my days as a junior college student of formulating working policies to bring the benefits of modern life to the less privileged. After all, what’s the point of our education, skills and talents if we do not fully utilize them to benefit our society? It may seem an idealistic impossibility right now but I do believe that if God wants us to dream, he surely has His plans for us. Just one day after Pastor Joe’s sermon, I befriended someone who shared the same dream as me. With every person I get to befriend who shares the same goals as me, my dreams seem less remote and less impossible. Now, I know that I’m not alone in pulling down the walls and defeating the giants in my life.

And henceforth, my brothers and sisters, I pray that all of your dreams may come true. We may sometimes fail in the process of reaching for the unreachable but at least we know that if there is only one chance in this life that we may understand who we really are, we have taken it boldly and courageously with no regrets.

Let us now work towards fulfilling the destiny that God has given to each of us. If the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams, then the future is indeed ours to conquer.

Written by:
Kenny Tan
Joshua’s 12