Over the past six weeks or so there has been this prayer I keep hearing people pray over me. They declare that God is going to do much bigger things than my dreams. This is at once exciting, and then it’s a little bit disconcerting.
I’ve always been able to dream big. I like dreaming. I like planning and fantasizing. And God’s going to blow all that out of the water? And if God’s going to do bigger things than I dream, how can I even pursue what he’s doing? How can I chase something I can’t even dream?
At the same time I’ve been listening to some stuff about Shane Claiborne. Shane Claiborne is this guy that is a part of a community, The Simple Way, doing some pretty cool stuff in Philadelphia. They live together, sharing everything, and do what they can to help their community. He’s what you might call a trendsetter in contemporary Christianity. He’s the kind of guy who stirs me to dream those big dreams I was talking about. The dreams that God is going to demolish with his plan.
So I’ve been listening to the story of how Shane Claiborne and his folks got started and I’m learning that he’s actually a pretty normal Christian guy. He grew up in the Bible Belt, went to a Christian school and pretty much just launched his ministry from there. He doesn’t have some crazy post-modern perspective. He’s not an atheist convert. He’s always believed in Christ, he’s been convicted of the truth and he’s doing what he can to proclaim it.
And this has been encouraging. I think for a long time I’ve had these big dreams about changing the world, or at least changing Christianity and for the most part I’ve been expecting disappointment. I’ve been figuring that my perspective is a little stale. How can I really say something original or earth-shattering when I’m preaching at a bunch of people just like me? Can you really make a difference from the inside?
So lately God’s been showing me that the dreams he’s given me could actually come true. He’s showing me that when I’m following him big things happen. As I’ve been boiling down faith to a simple question of intimacy he’s been doing more and more in and through me. And then I hear about this guy Shane Claiborne who just said, “I believe this and this about God and faith and I’m going to do whatever it takes to pursue that in real life.” And so I say, “OK, God, let’s do this.”
And then I’m at a loss. Because I have no idea what “this” is. I want to be obedient in the moment, but I also want to know what I’m obeying toward. How do I know? What am I doing? This vision isn’t an easy sell and that’s because it’s not really much of a vision at all.
I shared some of these thoughts with a couple of good friends out here and they both said the same thing: let go of “dreams”. Don’t think that the something you want is actually something. Know that what you want is God and what he has for you. And so there’s that Abraham and Isaac thing again – God says, “Sure you can have it, but will you give it up anyway?” And I answer, “I mean, I guess so, right?”, all the while not knowing what that looks like or even what it means.
What a story to tell.
