We have made it to Costa Rica!! We left Dulles yesterday afternoon and arrived at our hostel near midnight local time. This is a little tropical hide away. The entrance with yellow renaissance style architecture and the interior has Spanish tile and wood floors. Costa Rican landscapes decorate the walls and the front window overlooks the Cordillera Central mountain range. Without saying, it’s great. But we are only staying here a few more hours before we head 90 miles north to our ministry site.
Anyway, there’s a phrase that gets thrown around world race culture: Kingdom Dreams. (There's actually a website devoted to it and I believe a book on the way.) It’s this idea that we should not only dream big about bringing the Kingdom of God to the nations, but also act on that dream. We should dream to execute and achieve. Not just dream to dream. We should believe we could change the world. We should believe we have talents, value, and possibility, to do things bigger than ourselves and bigger than things that have been done before.
This isn’t some pithy concept used to induce a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings into signing up for some mission trip, though. It’s scriptural.
John 14: 12-14 reads: Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
So, the guy who raised people from the dead, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, walked on water, told us we have not only the ability, but the expectation to dream AND act big! To believe that our generation can heal those made sick by poverty, bring sight to those blind to right and wrong. And, beyond this, I can’t think of what greater things we have the ability to do. I think that’s because I’ve been taught to dream small, fear failure, and live within reliability.
A baby girl who sat next to me on the plane last night reminded me of this. Showed me that Dreaming is instinctual, natural, something given to us. During our light she played with her hands, a telephone, and a yellow plastic t-rex. Imagination flowed out from her fingertips, into the dinosaur jungle made of two resting tray tables. In her mind I’m guessing the gap between the tables wasn’t a gap, but maybe a gorge between two cliffs or a river. She just played and imagined. She enjoyed the craziness of her mind. The dreams she saw come a reality.
On this journey I hope to get back to some dreaming. I hope to learn more about what it means to do even greater things than what Christ did while on earth. I hope and pray that you can all learn to dream more, to dream bigger, and maybe even make it part of your everyday life. To not be content with your normal routine but really pursue the passions of your heart. To put yourself in a place where you can see Christ show up and fulfill your dreams with you. To have dreams and imagination flow from your fingertips, mouth, heart, mind, soul like a fluent language.
