Have you ever had a really great dream?  I mean the kind of dream where everything you value in life is right there happening before your very eyes.  You see yourself getting married to the person you always wanted.  You are in the career you had hoped for.  You see your children.  You might even see your demise, but it is ok; you are at peace.  It is like a portal into the future or into your own heart-felt desires.  And then you wake.  You realize that it was..."just a dream"...or was it?

Did you catch all three of the Matrix movies?  Of all the characters, I found Morpheus to be the most engaging.  Morpheus, as his name suggests to those familiar with mythology, was vision-oriented and had a lot of "dream" lines: When he first met Neo he likened Neo's present life to a dream from which he might not wake up.  How then could he tell the difference between real and dream?  The Oracle lamented for him that he was, "Poor Morpheus" because of his fixation with his dream that he would be the one to find...The One.  In the last movie, Morpheus, realizing that things weren't going exactly as planned stared hollowly into mid-air and like a whipped dog said, "I had a dream.  And that dream was taken from me."

Have you ever met someone devoid of their dreams?  You probably have and perhaps don't even realize it.  They might be that cranky old person that gets under your skin; especially when you express dreams and goals of your own and all they do is "hrmph."  They might be the people who always express a skeptical thought when you tell them about some great vision you've had.  They may even be the people you sit with at the lunch table who don't even know their dreams have been taken from them yet, but who, one day, will loose ground and let go of what it was they thought they were after.

Helen Keller is often quoted as saying that worse than a person without sight is a man with sight, but no vision.

I had a dream.  I had one of those dreams where I saw my future: married to her; going overseas, but not to the exact place I had thought; getting ship-wrecked and having to swim for it, but still at peace because I know my God; and watching her walk by a grave marker with a little one.

Then I woke up.  We won't ever be together.  And now that I'm a little wiser, I think I'm glad for it.  I'll probably never end up doing any of the things I saw--not specifically.  Maybe I'll live to a ripe, old age.  Maybe the Lord will return before then.  The destruction of that dream used to bother me--that it was just a dream.

I had a dream.  And that dream was taken from me.

Then came a loud cry, like an echo through the centuries of one whose voice cried out in the desert.  In the middle of a sermon on the cross, my Bible college prof. exclaimed...

"Jesus doesn't want to just take away all your sins!  He wants all your hopes, all your fears, all your dreams--EVERYTHING!!!"

Wow!  That was a strong statement of surrender!  The message was clear to me: When Jesus went to the cross, he gave up everything he could have had to gain what he really wanted.  He could have forced everyone to worship him by calling on the angels of heaven to come and rescue him from the cross.  He could have ruled with an iron fist.  But he laid down those potential dreams for something far greater: us.  And when I consider that he gave up his dreams, how could I hold mine back from him?  "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."  But now I had a problem: I had no dream--no vision.

What would it be like if God were to take away everything we held dear?  There was a man in the Bible by the name of Job.  One could say he was fulfilling his dreams: Family, successful career, lands, livestock, etc.  This was a wealthy, righteous, and influencial guy.  Then Satan came along and basically said that Job was only loving God because of the good things God had given him.  So God allowed Satan to take away all the good things Job had, except for Job's wife--who turned out to be no comfort.  Job, however, never cursed God, but said, "Naked I came and naked I shall depart.  The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  May the Name of the Lord be blessed forever."  Job then endures the poor counsel of well-meaning, but misguided friends.  In the end, God finally speaks and lets Job know that he is still on his throne and is in control.  He then restores twice as much to Job as what he had before.

If we lose our dreams for Him, what makes us think that He won't restore to us twice as much as before?  Or does Jesus merely jest when he says, "Anyone who wishes to save his life will lose it.  But whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel's sake will find it."  And again, "Give, and it will be given to you: a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing."  And yet again, "No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." 

"I had a dream.  And that dream was taken from me."  Take heart, Morpheus, everything will work out for the better.