Dreams

Mark Twain once wrote, "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

It is important to dream but it is also important to be a supporter of dreamers.

Dreams can be so fragile. They can come and go depending upon the individual. Some people are not supporters of the dreams of others because it reminds them of how far they are from living out their own dreams. As a result, they try to knock down anyone who is moving outside their existing box. They are dream killers.

Norman Cousins once said, "Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live."

Larry Carter, president of Great Lakes Christian College, tells the following true story:

I remember when I was a kid, some 40 years ago, playing on a Little League baseball team.

One of the things our coach did was host a picnic for the team at the beginning of the season. After we ate hot dogs and burgers, he sat us down for a pep talk. He asked, "How many of you have a dream to one day play in the Major Leagues?" Almost every hand shot up. Every kid with his hand up believed he could do it. You could see it in their eyes.

He then told us, "If that is to happen, that dream begins now!"

I was so inspired by that challenge, all of us were, that we practiced and played hard and we went undefeated for the next few years. All-Star teams from other leagues would play us and lose!

Some 25 years later I became a Little League coach. I brought all the kids together at the beginning of the season to give them a pep talk, the same one my coach had given me. I asked my team the same question, "How many of you have a dream to one day play in the Major Leagues?" Not one hand was raised. Not one kid believed he could do it. You could see it in their eyes. I was speechless.

The rest of my talk was meaningless, so I said, "Really? Nobody? Well, go get your gloves and let’s throw." I thought about that day for a long time. What had happened in the 25 years since I was a kid? What had come into their lives to steal their dreams? What had convinced them they would never be more than what they were?

Nothing can cause a person to loose motivation as much as losing a dream. Dreams keep us alive. Benjamin Franklin once said, "Most men die from the neck up at age twenty-five because they stop dreaming."

Tony Campolo writes, "I work with inner-city kids, and the society hasn't beaten them down yet. I deal with African-American kids and Latino kids on the streets of Philadelphia. Society hasn't beaten them down yet. They still believe in the future.

Ask them, "What are you going to do? What are you going to be?"

They say, "I'm going to be an astronaut" or "I'm going to be a surgeon." They say, "I'm going to be a musician" or "I'm going to be a pro basketball player." They believe in the future.

As they grow older, ugly realism sets in. Did you see the movie The Autobiography of Malcolm X? In one of the most painful scenes Malcolm X realizes the system will not allow him to be a lawyer, and his dream is shattered. Here's the good news of the gospel: we have a Jesus who creates dreams and visions for us."

Never stop dreaming! I want to always be dreaming of greater things until the day I transition from this life to the next.

But let's never stop supporting the dreams of others as well! Let's determine to be dreams boosters, not dream busters. Everyone has a dream, and everyone needs encouragement.

Let's all be "dream supporters"!

What are your dreams today?