I have always had trouble with the question of dreams. Of all the kids in class that wanted to be firefighters, or teachers, or moms, or the President of the United States of America… I was always the one that would look confused and say, “I don’t know!” Even deciding my major was difficult because I still couldn’t point to what I wanted to do with my life. Even now, after picking a major, and seeing God leading me towards missions, I still have trouble defining my dreams.
Just as Miller says, what makes an epic story epic is the fact that something is impossible. But not just that; the true determining factor of a great story is why an impossibility is approached. Why does the protagonist try to overcome the difficulty? I want my story to be epic. But my problem is simply figuring out what my story is about. And I think that is a great part of the story. I mean, Miller’s entire book is about discovering his dream and then, only then, can he begin to go after that dream. Over half his book is written depicting the search for a dream, the search for some motivation to get him off the couch.
So then I wonder, what makes me want to get off the couch? People do—and the idea that people around the world live every day without knowledge of the best thing that could happen to them. It’s a thought that truly makes my heart hurt. Helping people, Christians and non-Christians, grow closer to God and demonstrating God’s love to them is what makes me feel alive. So, I guess that is my dream. How cliché. Isn’t this the type of dream that every Christian around the world should have? Is not each and every Christian called to spread God’s love to everyone? Does the fact that my dream is the same, or should be the same, as every other Christian’s in the entire world somehow negate it? I think not. And although other people may have different dreams that feed into the necessity to share Christ’s salvation, I know that God will lead my heart to receive the dream He wants for me when He wants me to have it. I can wait, because that’s part of the story.
