A World of Lesser Dreams

killing the expectation that the best things in life are things

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my dream is. What it is that I want more than anything.

Is it a place?

A city spilling with people of every age and height and weight and race. Busy with songs of chatter and honking horns. Or maybe it’s a hundred-acre field clothed in soft, green grass with a small farmhouse on the hill. There would be a wrap-around porch with rocking chairs that look out over the setting sun and tree branches heavy with leaves. 

Is it a job? 

A 9-5 that pays millions. The office, a skyscraper tearing through the clouds, taller than you’ve ever seen. Cubicle after cubicle, clacking keyboards, and ringing phone lines. Or maybe it’s waitressing at a bistro with tables on the sidewalk. Wearing an apron and asking questions. Serving good food to hungry people. 

Is it money? 

A closet that belongs in a magazine. Skirts that twirl and tops that fit just right. I could have a car that drives itself and never worry about gas. I could buy flowers daily and throw dinner parties on my back porch for every friend I’ve ever had. Travel on the weekends, take classes at a college until my skin is wrinkled and my hair is grey. Or maybe my skin would never wrinkle and my hair would never grey. 

Is it success? 

Being a bestselling author on every podcast and late-night talk show. Awards and trophies lining my mantle. Mingling with millionaires and doctors. Getting noticed on walks and at restaurants. Being thanked and praised and asked, “How do you do it all?” Looking through an inbox of emails, all wishing they could be who I had become. 

Is it love? 

One that’s sleepy and slow. Flowers on your bedside, just because. Handholds on the drive home or calls when work gets lonely. It’s easy and effortless and feels like the movies. But it’s not because it’d be real and it’d be mine and last forever. 

If my dream is a place, what happens when the restaurants close, people move, and everything fades to unfamiliar? If my dream is a job, what happens when I am replaced by a calculated algorithim.  If my dream is money, what happens when every penny is spent and all that I bought wears thin? If my dream is success, what happens when someone better and brighter comes along and the praise ceases for good? And if it’s love, what happens when death creeps at the door, waiting only to take it all away? 

The things I am told that make life worth living never last as long as I wish they would. But still I spend my money and time and passion chasing that air. Praying the satisfaction will come, hoping it’s patiently waiting around the corner. 

So then what am I to dream if it’s all just dust?

Deep down, I believe every person wants the same thing: to be seen for who you truly are and chosen anyway.  

Sometimes that desire shows itself in wanting success or money or love. To cover up my real longing and prove to the outside world, “I don’t need you!” But soon enough, it all fades and my hearts still hurt, wondering if any love really lasts.

And there, I am pointed to Calvary.

Remembering the immovable Truth that I am known, in my mess and brokenness, and chosen despite it all. Covered by a love that no work could earn and no mistakes could take away.

I’m so quick to forget the ways God cares for me. I forget He cares about the people I live with and the job I have. My heartbreaks and let downs. My fears and joys. My community and passions. That He has written my days by hand. That He bottles each of my tears and counts them all. He has given me eyes to see beauty and a mind to capture it through word.

When I forget, my dream feels unmet again, longing and deep and loud. And I believe the created can surpass the Creator. That the world’s lesser dreams might work this time around.

Fleeting is the nature of every want.

But only when I taste and see that I am living in the reality of my deepest dream coming true, can I enjoy life’s gifts for what they are. They can’t save me. But they can bring joy and purpose and excitement to my life. They are to be delighted in as a reflection of the love I have already been given.

So my friendships no longer have to manipulate. I am free to have bad days at work. My money can be held with open hands. My art can fall short of what I wanted it to be. And even better, I can join in delighting the gifts of those around me. Of the marriage and promotion and the move to the big city, knowing they do not unseat the promise of my being loved.

All because I stand in the light of a love that will not me go.

I remember in one of my early years of college I was eating a local burger shop and there was a sign plastered to the wall that read: The best things in life aren’t things. 

My roommate and I were eating supper with my parents who had just come in town and when I read those words on the wall, the truth of them set deep in my gut. A revelation in a burger shop

The best things in my life were the ways I was shown bits of the Creator. Through art and music and friendship and laughter.

It wasn’t success or popularity as I had been so quick to believe.

What I’m told will make me happy and content and glad and full are not capable of doing such things and never will be. 

There is freedom in killing the expectation that the best things in life are things. 

My dream has already come true and now I get to live like it.