REFLECTIONS

Dreams and Imagination

There is a difference, you know. The difference is daylight and dark. The link between dreams and imagination is a story, really a fairy tale of sorts, only dreams often come without an ending. I remember one haunting dream when I was about 5-years old. A large, scaly snake, one with legs, chased me and my little legs couldn’t move fast enough to get away. I don’t know how the dream ended because fear awakened me. What I do know is that I had that same dream a few days later. That time it scared me enough to wake my dad by crawling into the safety of his arms.

On the other hand, daylight unleashed boundless imagination as I went about my childhood play, most often alone. Toy soldiers fancied me most. I positioned them around on the living room floor, built stockades for them with Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys and scattered toy cars and trucks from my toy box about to finish the scene. Let the war games begin.

With childhood friends, the games usually patterned after the most recent Saturday western movie. One of us would take on the role of the cowboy hero in the movie, and the other a hero in a previous one. Neither chose to play a hero’s sidekick like Gabby Hayes or Smiley Burnette. And we avoided the singing parts and the mushy stuff with the girl. The girl was always the object of our heroism, though. We would gallop on our imaginary horses about the yard, cap guns blazing, until we saved the girl from the villains in the black hats.

Dreams and imagination. Among God’s many blessings. I wish I would pay more attention to them. I admire those who do. Who was it that said, “Some see the world as it is and ask why. Others see the world as it might be and ask why not.” Someone saw birds flying across the sky and said, “Why not me.” Someone felt gravity’s strong pull but imagined liftoff for a journey to the moon. Someone saw a world in pain from smallpox infection but imagined a way to prevent it.

God created the world as He intended it to be. With coaxing from a snake, we messed it up. Jesus showed us the Way for redemption, and beyond our imagination, to overcome death. He taught us to look past the barriers of this dark and dreary place to see the world as it could be. Then, in the light of day, he recruited us for a hero’s part to carry the message into the world.

And he blessed us with motivating dreams and inventive imaginations to make it happen.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

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