DREAMS – Pt 1

Psalm 126:1-3 “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.”

Dreams are a powerful force in many people's lives. When I think of dreams I always think about the speech made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and especially the line, “I have a dream.” He did have a dream and he followed that dream with all that was in him. That dream became his life’s pursuit.

The word “dream” brings many pictures to mind. There are daydreams, which are nothing more than idle wishes. They usually have no hope of coming to pass because the one doing the daydreaming usually has no get-up-and-go about him. I remember some of the daydreamers from my high school days. They always talked a big game but never got off the bench and into the game. The only bench sitter who had anything to do with the victory of the game was usually the coach.

There are the dreams we have in our sleep whereby the subconscious mind speaks many times in incomprehensible pictures that no one can make sense of it. For years I always said that I never dream, but someone said that everybody dreams so I must not have remembered them. That may be true because I do have a short memory. But when I have heard some people talk about the stupid things they have dreamed, I’m glad that I either have never dreamed or at least I was smart enough not to remember them.

The dreams that people have told me about are mostly weird happenings. They usually don’t make much sense. There are not many people, outside of the Old Testament Daniel, who has any success with telling the meaning of dreams.

Then there is a dream, defined as a “desire and longing for a state of being and quality of life that a person has not as yet enjoyed.” This kind of dream propels men and women to great feats. They have pushed families in covered wagons to find new homes in places where no Americans had ever lived. Henry Ford created the assembly line because he dreamed of mass producing the automobile. The scientist Warner Von Braun looked into space and set out to develop a space ship that could take man to the moon. That dream not only drove him to pursue that dream but it also caused a group of men and women to look at that moon and looked forward to the day someone would realize that dream. Then in 1969 man set his foot on the moon and uttered those famous words, “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

The history of America is full of stories of great people who have made their dreams come true. For years I have loved to read success stories of people who have reached for bigger and greater things and saw their dreams fulfilled.

What does God have to say about people who dream? Of course one of the greatest dreamers in the Word of God was Joseph, who told his brothers that he would one day be a great leader and rule over even his family. And of course, his brothers set out to destroy his dream, but God still accomplished His purpose in the life of the young man. He did rule over his brothers and family, and through the life of the dreamer, two entire nations were saved.

When you think about the dream of Joseph and the fulfillment of it, you realize the fulfillment of his dream was dependent upon his partnership with God. His dream came true because God was working all things according to His perfect will. For the believer today who has a dream, desire or longing which has been placed within him by God, partnering with God means living within the purpose and perfect will of God.

In Psalm 126, we have a blueprint on how we can achieve the dream that God gives us. The biblical word Adream@ can mean an ordinary dream or a prophetic dream. It doesn=t pertain to this great longing of which we=re talking. But the entire Psalm, taken in its context, does deal with Christian longings and desires. This passage is familiar to us as a proof for soul winning. Verses 5-6 are often quoted and this application is not out of order. But I believe there is much more truth in this passage of scripture.

I don’t think we can be dogmatic about who wrote this Psalm but it was probably written durring the time when Sennacherib=s army was destroyed by God in a miraculous way as the city of Jerusalem was saved from destruction.

Jerusalem was a walled city and was safe, but those outside the walls of the city, the herdsmen, farmers, and shepherds, still faced constant danger and harassment by many different adversaries.

I believe this scenario is faced by many Christians even today. Some believers have seen God do many wonderful things in other people’s lives, but they long to experience His power and presence in their lives as well.

In the next few weeks in CHALLENGING CONCEPTS we will examine the dream mentioned here in Psalm 126 and see how the Psalmist saw his godly dream come true. We will also make application of this fact to the dreams you and I may have. God can bring our dreams to pass just as He did the Psalmist. Remember what we read in Psalm 37:4 “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

That’s my view; how about you?