Dreams

     Tonight I walked into Kroger around 11:45 to pick up a few odds and ends. I ran into an older man whose skin was dark and rough; whose hands were cracked with wear. His foot was in a cast and he struggled to hold the door open for one of his co-workers. His navy polo and khaki work-pants were tattered. I wondered how long he had been working there. We made eye contact and something inside  me ached terribly for him. My feet paused and I absorbed him. He glanced away and passed me but I continued to observe.
      I felt the burden inside his chest from twenty feet away. It weighed heavily upon my shoulders. I asked the Lord to take it from him. I began praying for this man and I felt as though the Lord was telling me a small portion of his story.
 
    This man [once] had a dream.

    I do not know what his dream consisted of. But I felt as though its magnitude was more important than its material.
 
    He once had a very large dream.

    Checking out, I began speaking with a cashier who was around my age. She had a gravelly voice; her breath was coated with the scent of cigarettes. She wore her pants low with a rainbow studded belt and her shirt a size too small. She placed change in my hand, and when her fingers grazed mine I felt immediate peace rush over me. She was kind, hopeful and alive. At 11:59 she told me to have a nice evening. I knew she meant it.
    As I began walking to my car I considered the contrast of the two characters. The girl pursued her life with a spirit of gratefulness; her brow was un-furrowed, and her spirit seemed un-broken. I wondered about the extent of her dreaming.
    My heart still ached for the elderly man. I felt his life, his pain and his toil. As I sat in my car I considered the other figures that I encountered while shopping.
   A hispanic man who was clearly a mechanic followed near me throughout most of my trip. I wondered about him: who he was, his life, his family, and his aspirations. Had he achieved his dreams?
   I began praying that God would instill in all of these people a voracious hunger to pursue their passions so that He might be glorified. I prayed that they would be ignited again, and encounter Him in new ways--or for the first time altogether. As I began praying, I couldn't stop. There was an insatiable longing  to pray for their release from the bondage of doubt, self-torment, and allowing their past to dictate their future. As I began thinking about it, I couldn't understand why this is not a huge priority in the church. And these questions arose.

   I would be so ecstatic to get some feedback on any (or all) of the following:

   1. Where do our dreams fit in the concept of our identity in Christ?
   2. How important are our individual dreams?
   3. Are our dreams important to God?
   4. How can we glorify God in the pursuit of our dreams?