When I was child I remember having this little red plastic toy television set. It had two yellow knobs on the front, one of which you would turn four to five complete rotations to make the television come to life. I’d sit in my room watching images printed on a roll of paper slowly glide across the small rounded screen to the music box version of “Row Row Row Your Boat”. It’s a good childhood memory made of many warm summer days where my only concern was to keep my plastic toy television set wound. That was my life back then, back when my life really was but a dream. Whatever that meant in the context of a gentle row down a merry stream we could all spend a lazy afternoon fishing after with our shiny multi-pronged hooks of supposition baited with wiggling strands of our most confident speculation, but two things are certain; you are alive and there is a dream.
We all live a dream or at least talk about living a dream. There is, of course, the American dream of success and comfort. There are the parents who live their dreams through their children. There are the “everyday” people who live their dreams through the Wednesday night premier, Saturday afternoon news, Sunday morning service or Monday night field. Then there are those who live such an extraordinary dream they inspire others to not just live through them, but lay down their own dream and live because of them; adopting the dream as their own. Included among these few is one man who humbly and faithfully shared and lived out his dream, his vision for what life was all about.
He believed that life wasn’t about yourself, but about others. He believed one should give generously, love deeply, laugh loudly, weep sincerely, and live for what lasts beyond this life, giving all that you are for a greater purpose than yourself. This is what he did. His name is Jesus Christ and he’s given us his dream. This is a dream of putting God’s will and desires before your own because you believe God is worthy of such love, sacrifice and devotion. This is a dream of being people who love others more than we love ourselves because we see the way that God has loved us even through our most unlovable moments. This is a dream of no longer being divided by selfishness and greed, but being wholly unified as a community of Christ followers in unconditional love and complete acceptance because we’ve seen how Jesus and God are unified and our unity is what shows that Jesus is who He says that He is. This is Jesus’s dream and we’ve been invited to be a part of it.
I feel as though I’m only beginning to grasp what living out his dream really means. But as I continue to keep this new yellow knob I’ve found wound tight day by day, I hope to understand it more clearly and live it more fully so the pictures that you’ll see gliding by through that rounded plastic screen will look more and more like hope, faithfulness and love… to the music box version of “Amazing Grace”.
