Just Dream!

I was sitting alone with my thoughts reminiscing about years gone by when love was giddy and adventurous, when ministry was ahead of me, when I was blessed with an infinite source of energy, when I thought I knew what love was all about, what ministry was all about, what marriage was all about, raising children and even sound theology.

Now I am not quite so sure of all things. But I think I have at least discovered that life is a paradox in which you cannot have hope without tribulation, nor comfort without toil, nor forgiveness without remorse, nor victories without an enemy. There is no peace without reconciliation, no mountain tops without the valley between. Not even love in its infinite sense is real until with a vulnerable abandonment we open our hearts to love back.

Perhaps, my day is now past and I regret that wisdom comes when I am too old to enjoy it! My despair—if that’s what it was—was a seeming reluctant acceptance of getting old and leaving the greater challenges to the energetic young.

Well, as I am won’t to do, I brought my Lord into my soliloquy to make it a dialog, and then there came to my mind and heart Joel 2:28 [I think He brought this up] that says it is the young men whom are called to see visions, to look ahead to the work that requires youth and energy. We old men get to dream, but not of yesterday, but of a beautiful and glorious tomorrow that awaits all of us who love our Lord.

As David wrote “I am old!” [Psalm 71:18}. Jacob told us this also when the time came to pass the blessings of God onto His eldest. In Joshua 23:2 after many victories, he realized that age was catching up. And Samuel [1 Samuel 12:2] resigned himself to Israel’s choice of a king with these same words, “I am old.”

This almost sounds like an excuse for retirement or some form of regret that our strength is failing. I am even developing the octogenarian gait. But it isn’t any of this! It is the time we have waited for through the passages of life—it is time to dream!

Dream of a crown of life because the finish line is in site. Dream of rewards, though, I admit, I don’t know what this means beyond a robe of righteousness (there’s nothing else I want). Dream of the blessings that await us, dream of the promises soon to be fulfilled, dream of glorious communion with old friends, of sitting at the Savior’s feet listening to Him teach us of mysteries He will then make so simple!

The Word of God is eternal because “It is written” which means it is not a mere history of what God did as much as it is a record of what God does—the divine activity of our Creator/Savior who has only begun to be both in our lives.

I do have opportunity to continue teaching in smaller groups a number of men and women called to serve our Lord. They honor me—as does the Lord—in allowing me to share God’s Word  with them. I think maybe with age comes wisdom and, God helping me, I will serve Him in encouraging them in the work.

But also: I may have a monthly opportunity now to share God’s Word with a group of saints at a Senior Citizens Residence Home, and I am thinking—why not go verse by verse through God’s Word and … just dream!