Dream God's dreams — Gift of Blessing Trust

Walt Disney told us all our dreams can come true if we have courage to pursue them. Nonsense! My childhood dream of being a ballerina was swiftly crushed by the fact that I can’t touch my toes, let alone do the splits.

Do we need to grow up and stop dreaming? NO! Disappointments are dreams trodden in the mud, hope crumbled into dust. But if you give up dreaming altogether, you’re a bird with a broken wing. Without hope, you won’t fly.

Here is a story for disappointed dreamers. A teenager called Joseph saw his dream shattered - until he discovered a bigger dream was in play – God’s dream of rescue.

The story starts with Joseph dreaming of his brothers bowing down around him like sheaves of wheat in the wind. Oh, I identify with that dream – the one where I’m the centre and everyone finally recognises how wonderful I am!

Best not to share that dream with your siblings! Joseph did and his brothers sold him into slavery, so his dream ended up in chains in a dungeon. But his story hadn’t ended. God’s dream is infinitely bigger than our self-aggrandising fantasies. Joseph’s captivity resulted in his family rescued from starvation. God’s dream was big enough to turn even evil to good.

We are invited to grow our dreams in the garden of God’s greater dream of redeeming all sorrows – his kingdom coming to earth, his rescue plan for the world. That’s why the first Pentecost promised new dreams and visions, radical ways of seeing the world in the light of God’s transforming grace.

For me, that has looked like watching some of my dreams die whilst God brought to life a cherished dream I’ve had for decades – the dream of binding up the broken-hearted, watching his comfort poured out on the grieving.

Many highlights of Christian history figure God’s dreamers. Think of Peter’s dream of unclean animals that spread the Gospel to the non-Jews - us! Or St. Augustine of Canterbury’s dream of sharing Jesus to the pagan English which made him bravely cross a choppy Channel in 597. Lord Shaftesbury dreamt of an England where children didn’t have to climb chimneys. Martin Luther King dreamt of racial equality. Amy Carmichael dreamt of children rescued from prostitution. Nicky Gumbel dreamt of the evangelisation of the nation. I could go on and on.

We need God’s dreams for 2026. Sometimes I want to shower my mind after reading the stories of abuse that fill the news. Images of war make us weep. It is precisely here that God wants us to give us his dreams.

How do we become God’s dreamers? Spurgeon beseeched us:“…let your Bibles be everything to you. Carry this matchless treasure with you continually, and read it, and read it, and read it again and again. Turn to its pages by day and by night. Let its narratives mingle with your dreams.” Those narratives tell us nothing is impossible with God. Here is hope to make us soar over all that threatens despair.

Lord, mend our broken wings. Send your Spirit so we dream your dreams.