“What makes your heart sing?” -Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs asked the right question. The word “dream” in Old English originally meant “joy” or “music.” A dream is a song, a melody that delights the heart. It makes your heart sing.
I am not a Hebrew scholar or expert, but I did a little digging and discovered that like many words in the Hebrew language, there are variations, nuances and often a richer, more visual, meaning to the word “dream.” Whereas we often only think of it only as “mental images and emotions” that occur while sleeping, there are other meanings and ways dreams develop.
One Hebrew word for dream means to “swirl.” Another means “to bind” or “make speechless.” A Greek word for dream means “a message” or “a gift.” And in English, one definition is to “contemplate the possibility of something” or “that something might be the case.”
Many dreams don’t just plop down out of heaven while you are passively asleep. Many dreams begin with a stirring, a swirling, a churning in your heart. You begin to contemplate the possibility of something that might even defy or supersede rationality or logic. You begin to wonder or imagine realities that might not yet exist.
Just imagine if people didn’t “dream” of different things not yet reality at that time. Whether the ability to fly in airplanes, cures for different diseases, there are all kinds of breakthroughs or inventions that we can’t imagine living without now!
And we all know how inspiring hearing the dreams of others can be. Martin Luthers “I have a dream” speech is one the most vivid modern examples. It painted a powerful picture of a reality that could be or of what a new kind of future should look like.
Dreams communicate or engage us on a whole different level. They are images that ignite the imagination. They are pictures or visions that stir the heart and propel to action. They churn relentlessly and passionately within until ready to be birthed without. They spark a sense of awe, wonder and contemplation that something could just be possible after all that might not have prior been considered possible.
What song does God want to give you? What melody of heaven has he already placed deep inside you that he wants heard through your life? What makes your heart sing? Can you hear God’s song for your life? Is your heart tuned to his heart and the melody, the message, the dream, He wants to give you and display through you?
Or perhaps you have lost your song. Maybe one time there was a song in your heart that has been lost because of pain, discouragement, disappointment or suffering. God wants to restore that song or put a new song in your heart. He is a God of restoration and He has a dream for our lives and in every season of our lives.
Dreams are what produce passion. They provide focus and purpose. They display something of the person of Christ through our lives to others. He has plans to use us in unique ways that display the beauty of his character, demonstrate the depths of his grace, display the richness of his heart, and communicate his message of salvation, redemption and restoration to the world. In fact, He wants to use our lives to restore the song of others; to put a song back into the hearts of the hopeless and suffering as He has done and does for us.
These dreams are discovered as we seek God himself, the great dreamer and dream-giver. There is no one more creative, joyful, beautiful, expressive, redemptive and passionate!
As we tune our hearts to his heart, he begins to awaken us to his song. We begin to move to his rhythm and beat. We begin to dance to his melody. We become instruments that bring music back into other lives. Can you hear the melody of heaven over your life? What is the song, what is the dream that God has put or wants to put in your heart? What makes your heart sing?
***To listen to a recent message I spoke on this to board/staff of the mission organization I lead called ServeNow click here: Dreams
Ben Foley 