dreaming big(ger).

I've been thinking a lot lately about the American Dream. I've been musing about it for months. It struck me as funny to see that others were too.

In his 1931 book "The Epic of America", James Truslow Adams first coined the term.

"...But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement."

Better. Richer. Fuller. I'm not so sure we've obtained Adams' version of The Dream. Fuller? If measuring waistlines, sure. Richer? Most of us, yes. Better? Not necessarily. At least not when you're measuring by God's standards of better.

Perhaps Adams could have more accurately have termed it "more comfortable..." . Bigger houses, larger cars, 1.5 children (because that last half child is so uncomfortable...) Of course, it's arguable that people in a coma are comfortable....but you can't convince me that they're better off and I don't know too many who'd trade spots with them.

Maybe there's a better better...an uncomfortable better that stretches your flesh but insures that your heart is alive.

Adams was not the only one who had a dream. Neither was MLK II. God has a dream - and if you read it in context, it's a dream for people living in a foreign land. It's a dream about how to exist in a culture when everything is strange and even offensive. It's a dream of God's plan for the hearts who love him.

Jeremiah 29:11-13
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

I'm banking on God's dream for me. Whatever comes along in the balance is gravy - but I'm going to lay hold of the bigger dream.