What do you want to be when you grow up? A question often asked of us as children. Common answers may have been: a firefighter, an astronaut, a professional athlete, or maybe even an animal of some sorts. The world then was wide open and without limits. But then we have to “grow up”. The highly powered dream machine that is fueled by the questions asked of us, producing wild hopes and aspirations, where the wild isn’t so wild and the word “can’t” is a wrench in the engine, slowly dies and stops altogether. We are told it needs to be left exactly where our toys and stuffed animals are and learn to do what we have to do, not what we desperately yearn for.
Over the past couple months, I have been reminded that my dream machine was piling up dust in the closet. Some of my squad mates asked me what my dreams were and I embarrassingly didn’t really have an answer. For many of the years leading up to this I was caught up in the never-ending cycle of the “next step” mentality. Where something is accomplished but what’s next is immediately thought of. But there questions fueled the machine again and the child within me arose. I left asking myself, “What are my dreams?” and began writing them down. I started with what I wanted out of this mission trip. This simple task changed my outlook entirely. A noticeable shift in my spirit took place. I sometimes was challenged by looking at this world race as just something to get through as if this was no different than any other “next step”. Instead I was now seeing it as a infinite field of opportunity where each day was a gift to take ownership of what I deeply desired. But why did it have to take me going on a mission trip to start dreaming again? I am not entirely sure but I believe it is a state of rest that I haven’t experienced before. Being here has taken me off the assembly line of the American way of life and I have actually had the chance to see where it goes. And I want something more. I am not minimizing that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do or even minimizing American principles, but what I am arguing for is a return to the child within all of us. A child that dreams and actually believes they can achieve them. A child that asks their Father for fish and believes He won’t give them a stone. We were never meant to put the dream machine away and I believe that you don’t have to go on a mission trip to realize that. Wherever you are, whatever your age, I am asking you…what are your dreams? Go after them! And when you get them, what are you dreaming about now?
