7. Dreaming…
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we can’t see… by faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
Hebrews 11:1-3
In C S Lewis’ first book of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Magicians Nephew, there is an amazing description of the creation of the new land, Narnia, which mirrors so well God’s seven-day project to create our beautiful world. (I strongly recommend reading all seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia – not just the famous second book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe):
In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing… the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it… Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out… If you had seen and heard it…, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing…
The Magician’s Nephew, CS Lewis, p93
How beautiful is this description of how light came into being. Close your eyes. Take yourself back to the day that God created the world. You are standing on nothing, in the blackness. There is no air, no sea, no land, nothing. Then, suddenly, something absolutely different to the darkness bursts onto the scene:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.”
Genesis 1:1-5
Read Genesis chapters 1 and 2 to see what happens next.
God had a dream – to create our world from nothing. He began with a dream and the faith that he could do it. Then, over seven days, he created the sky, the seas, the land, plant life, animals, birds, fish and, finally, man. God has passed on that faith to us. We can dream of things that are not and see them come into existence by faith.
Artists do this all the time – imagine something they can create, believe they can do it, and then take the blank canvas or music sheet and begin to see it unfold before them. The first brush strokes or notes on the page are the beginning of the journey which could take days or even years to complete. But they have begun to see it unfold in faith.
I love to do cross stitch, and my current project is to create a replica of an aboriginal dot painting. There are 12 blocks to sew, 38,000 stitches in all. I am on block 5 and I am inspired as I begin to see the image I dreamed unfolding.
The musical South Pacific has a song called Happy Talk:
Happy, happy, happy, happy talk
Talk about things you’d like to do.
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true.
What about you? Do you have a dream? We all need to dream, to use our God given imaginations to see what we could be in our futures, and then believe it can come true.
When I was younger my husband and I had many dreams – to purchase our own home, have children, serve God in meaningful ways, travel. Over the years we have seen these dreams come to fruition and we now have a lovely home, three amazing sons, and have participated in many mission trips and other events in service of God. We have travelled to many countries discovering new adventures along the way. Without the dreams the odds are that we would have missed the mark on most of these things.
Dreaming is nothing more than looking into our futures, using the imaginations God has given us, to see what isn’t yet as reality and believing.
Prayer: Lord, reactivate my imagination, show me what lies before me, give me new and exciting dreams to dream and then the faith to believe they can come true and the perseverance to make them happen.
Amen
Action: Take time today to sit and dream of your future. Talk to God about it and invite him into your dreaming. You will be amazed at what he has in store for you…
Journal your thoughts:
