Follow your dream. Chase your dreams. Believe in your dreams.
These are all phrases that just don't carry quite the punch that they use to for me. I might call myself a "dreamer", I've had my fair share of different dreams and ambitions that my sister would say I had the guts to actually go for . Why not try ya know?
Experiencing culture outside Texas and America has always been a part of my "dream". There's something grand about standing on a mountainside and looking into a valley of pure nature that will resonate in the human heart. On my recent travels in Asia, two friends and I went on a hike up a mountain following a river that rose into different levels of waterfalls. It was majestic. Nature can make you feel so small while simultaneously making you feel alive for having just laid eyes on it.
While hiking I thought about the fact that we and others on the trek were taking pictures. It's natural to want to share these moments with others, to share the experience, to share that feeling of wonder. As some tried to capture the feeling in a lens, I thought to myself this is what creates wanderlust. Sure there are beautiful places everywhere but perhaps somewhere out there, there will be a place so beautiful or an experience so profound that the aching wonder these sights create within us would be answered; a place where the land doesn't just elicit a yearning inside but also offers an answer, a destination for the journey, an end point to the wandering, the x on the treasure map.
I did take pictures, I did enjoy that I had friends to share the experience with, I even wished that other people could have experienced such awesome sights with me. While all that is true, I couldn't help but feel heartbroken for those who stand before creation and don't get to experience a relationship with the creator. Sure sharing with my friends is nice and facebook says the pictures got such an such likes and I would be ecstatic to hike and play in nature all the time, but when I look out at the world I dont see just the art but the artist, and I know in my heart that the canvas doesn't end with what my eyes can see but that I am a part of the picture. The one who created every grain of sand and every star in the sky, knows every hair on my head and every freckle on my skin and every last longing and thought streaming in my mind. I am known and loved fully by the creator of all, what a beautiful thing to know and be thankful for.
My treasure map not only has a destination, but I could never complete this journey on my own. We can't get there by our own human efforts, we need help. Jesus is that help, He is the way, He was the only one that could ever have made it on His own and rather than having all the glory to Himself like He deserved, He died for me and you and everyone, not hypothetical people of the future but for me and the way I can be rude and self-centered, for the liars and cheaters and the lowly humans who can't help but be human, wrought with sin and struggle.
He died so that we can live, not just a life of getting by but a life where our dreams come true. Where the ache in our hearts is answered.
My dream isn't to travel and help people. My dream is to follow God's call for my life. To trust that if I leave everything I know He will provide all the understanding my heart needs and in doing so He might use me to share His love with other's, that maybe someone else would know the feeling of thanking the creator when they look upon creation. My dream is for God to use what little I have to offer, to bring glory to Him. I'm lucky to get to travel and help along the way, but that's not my dream, that's not the treasure I seek.
Psalm 73:21-26
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.