Airplanes and Dreams

Today when I worked in the wheat fields with the boys, we had an interesting conversation about airplanes. They curiously asked, “Can you open windows in a plane?” “Is there a parachute in the plane?” “How does it go up, if the wings don’t flap like a bird?” “What can you see when you’re way up in the sky?” “How do you make a bomb?” All the boys began to perk up as I told stories of airport security, metal detectors, etc. I told them how when you’re in the sky, the cars look like ants and when you go up even higher, the clouds look like cotton. It occurred to me that to fly in a plane seems like a dream world to these boys from Northern India, who rarely ever see a plane and most likely will never fly in one.

Jeff recently asked the older boys to journal about their life dreams. They wrote down things like: to hear from God, to get a good education, to be a father, to be someone who is trustworthy, to be a husband, to be a hard worker, and to have a steady job. Vimal wrote on the top of his paper, “Dreams don’t come true.” It was a sad reminder that many of these boys are filled with disappointment and low expectations. Jeff challenged the boys with something his youth pastor used to say, “Life is not determined by what you want, but by the choices you make.” We are trying to instill in them that they matter, they have potential, and that God has created them for a unique purpose.

I wonder for you, what’s your dream? Are you living it? Are you fully alive to what God has created you to be?

Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I love the last lines of the book, “Organic Church,” by Neil Cole (a must- read book that is helping to form the way Jeff and I look at church). “Do not settle for rusting in the harbor over the decades. Set sail on the oceans of risk, and let God lead you to stories that are worthy of being told.”