Encouragement

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While discussing “deep things” with my wife on an afternoon last January, my six-year-old son reported to her, “I’m going to be a harmonica player, a preacher and a magician. On Sundays, I’ll preach; on Tuesdays, I’ll play harmonica; and on Thursdays, I’ll do magic tricks. On Mondays and Fridays, I’m off and on Saturdays, I’ll catch my breath: I won’t talk much or play harmonica.”

Of course, everyone likes a man who knows where he’s going in life. And you and I likely have a lot of things that we ourselves would like to either see in life or to accomplish, reaching out to them until we’ve either achieved those dreams, or have totally given up on dreaming and hoping, crippled by disappointment or disillusionment.

For, as life so harshly reminds us at times, we can abruptly find ourselves thrust onto paths that we could not have anticipated and which, more often than not, appear to lead away from the very things we would pursue. Sickness comes, relationships break, jobs end, and death takes loved ones away. Perhaps when in “seasons of remembering”, you find yourself standing by the graveside of someone whose body has failed and spirit has gone on into eternity, leaving you to wonder as you do so, why he or she was taken and all the things you had hoped for never came to be.

Do such apparent bitter disappointments mean that hope is in vain and that it is foolish to dream? No… at least not if those hopes and dreams are rooted in God, sprouting from a heart that holds as its secret strength a resolute confidence that, whatever happens, God will work it for my good and for His glory (Romans 8:28). In fact, when God has moved in our lives and we have shifted in our hearts’ desires until His dreams have replaced our small and immature ones, a new kind of dreaming begins within us that is not shaken by the turbulence common in life, nor is shattered by the tempests that can strike without warning.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’ Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed His own blood for my soul. My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought: my sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, ‘Even so,' it is well with my soul.” So flowed the pen of Horatio G. Spafford shortly after he received word that his beloved young children were swallowed up by crashing waves as their ship sank to the bottom of the tumult-tossed sea.

What dreams did I once have as a six-year-old? I can remember some of them, but flying from fancy to fancy, those dreams changed sometimes as quickly as the sun would rise and set on each new day. Do I still dare to dream and run the risk of having my hopes turn to nothing in the end? Yes, I dare it. For even though I may be “all grown up now”, when I consider that in the context of eternity, I am still a small child, I realize that many of my hopes still fall utterly short of the glories kept by my God for those who trust in Him.

“Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun…. The days of the blameless are known to the LORD, and their inheritance will endure forever” (Psalm 37:4-6, 18 NIV).

As far as my son goes, is there anything wrong with his dreams? Is there any reason that we should expect that his ambitions should come to nothing? No. Not at all. Just like many of the dreams and hopes that you have had or have now, there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with the things for which he hopes. Maybe he WILL be a harmonica player, picking up the skills necessary to master it and maybe even having some basic talent for it besides. Maybe he WILL be a magician, causing crowds to “ooo” and “ah” over sleight-of-hand tricks that seem to defy logic. Maybe he WILL be a preacher, called to proclaim the amazing and everlasting good news of God’s love for us as revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus for all who believe and receive it!

Maybe he’ll do only some of these things. Maybe he’ll do all of these things. And maybe he’ll do none of these things, but in the end it will be all right as long as he yields to God’s leading and permits Him to supply him bigger and better things than those for which we might have otherwise settled. Still, we got our son a harmonica… just in case.

“If the LORD delights in a man’s way, He makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with His hand” (Psalm 37:23-24 NIV).

Copyright © Thom Mollohan.

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