Reflection for the day

A reflection book I am working through asked me how forgiving I am when someone does something that crushes a dream of mine.  It seemed to me that’s asking the wrong question.  It seems the better question is:  ‘Why I am letting a dream crush me?’

It seems “dreams” could be grouped into 3 categories:

1. Foolish dreams.  If this is the case, I have only my self to blame for despairing when they fail.  I was the fool for desiring it.  If anything it should be a joy because it is an opportunity to turn away from foolishness.
2. Selfish dreams.  I won’t fully condemn selfish dreams.  Often God will allow us the indulgence of striving to achieve them.  However, if we are to be truly Godly, we must know that all selfish dreams are of little consequence.  We must never let them define us to the degree that failing to achieve them crushes our spirit.  If I am letting that happen, I am the fool.
3. Righteous/Godly dreams.  These might be the toughest, but only because we are trapped in our temporal experience of life.  As Christians we must always know the permanence and completeness of Christ’s victory.  Any setback is temporary.  If we are crushed by these setbacks, it means we don’t fully believe in Christ’s victory.  Yet again, the foolishness comes from within.

So it seems to me, that any time we are crushed by the failure of a dream, no matter what the type of dream it might be, we are the fool.  Any transference of the blame for that despair onto the shoulders of someone else, no matter how temporally accurate it might be that they are to blame for the failure of the dream, is to misunderstand what is causing the despair in the first place.