Are You A Dreamer? Or Are You A Practical Person?

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and added random paragraph breaks - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):

Are you a worthless dreamer or are you a practical person who lives in reality? Are these in contrast one to the other? 

Welcome to Jon's Voice Notes where I, Jon, go stream of consciousness from a topic to wherever it leads me without any planning, and that is planned to have no planning. It's yet another, there have been so many, beautiful late spring or some would say early summer day here in northern Illinois. I guess we're in meteorological summer but it's still astronomical spring. But man, I never knew there were so many beautiful days here, but there's one after the other and I am loving it. I'm sitting in my office looking across the room at a big sliding glass door out at the green courtyard outside in the trees, very refreshing. 

But let's get to it, dreamers versus reality. Which one are you? Are you one of those people that you just don't like the dreamers, that just you feel like they don't come down to practical realities? Or are you one of those people that you just get sick of the practical, always down, putting down all your ideas, people, and you want to follow your dreams? Are these in contradiction? 

Well let's think that through a little bit. I feel like as a younger man, in my teens and in my 20s especially, I was a dreamer. I heard about from people like Lauren Cunningham and Dick Eastman and Greg Johnson that I could change the world. I could give my life over to God and turn the world upside down. I was taught to be a radical Christian, whatever that means, right? A radical Christian. And I was a dreamer. I still am actually, but I was a dreamer. I wanted, I had, I'm kind of embarrassed to share this, I literally had four plans to become the president. Which I think it's because I felt like the president was like the top, like you couldn't get any higher than that. At this age I'm kind of like, if someone said, here, you can have this job, I think I would say no. 

But they were ambitious. I had ambition to change the world. All of it was about changing the world, leaving a mark on this place for the kingdom of God. So I was highly influenced by Charles Grandison Finney, the book Revivals of Religion. I'm sure I've mentioned that somewhere in these voice notes before, probably. I was highly, highly influenced by that book. And I was influenced by Lorne Cunningham, a speech he gave at a youth convention in the end of 1990, beginning of 1991. And the book, Is That Really You, God? And I came into Youth With a Mission with the full intent of causing, doing what I understood that needed to be done to provoke and cause the revival that God wants to bring to America and the world.

So I set about to do it. And I led things that way, I spoke that way, I prayed that way, I made decisions about what things me and my team and my schools would get involved with that way. And you know, I'm not totally convinced this is a bad thing. I was a dreamer. However, at somewhere in my 30s, I began to hit the wall as I realized I can't even get this revival going in myself. So I wasn't being fake, I was speaking what I really believed and saw and thought and understood about how God wanted me to behave. But I couldn't even get it to work in my personal secret life. Those parts of me that nobody sees but me and God. And my dreams began to crash and a season of crashing dreams happened. 

It took me a while to identify that at the core was my vision and dream for revival was being crushed as I realized I don't know what to do to make to get this, to get there. But I continued to pursue the Lord, even through the dark night of the soul seasons, which I'd had in the past, but this was a considerably longer one, actually. But I walked in the darkness with God and very slowly began to heal. 

Now one thing I believe that I see that's kind of different is the first time there was a big bang.in 1991. It built on things from my whole life, but God really disrupted my life and launched me out into my YWAM career with a lot of vision and passion. But the second time, it's been more like a slow build over literally years. But it has built and the passion has returned and the fire has returned, but I feel like it's deeper now because it's built into a deep, deep man where the work of God has gotten deeper. The revival has less seen by others, but deeper in my soul. 

And I also began to learn some things. 

Well, first of all, I want to say that from very young, I understood and was taught outright that every great dream breaks down ultimately into work. You have to put your feet on the pavement, your hands to the plow. You have to work to see it come about. So I knew that and I worked very hard. But as I grew in wisdom through some of those dark seasons, I began to get a different idea about how reality worked. Basically, all of my dreams were colliding with reality. I thought reality would kill my dreams, but what it did in the short term, it kind of feels like it did. But in the long term, it feels like it just built my dreams, which I believe are the dreams of God, onto a firmer base, a stronger foundation, a foundation of a strong inner man, much stronger. 

Not that God doesn't still have strengthening to do in me because there's a lot, but there's a stronger base there. 

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I read Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You. And the theme of the book, if I'm remembering the right book correctly, if I mix it up, I'm sorry, Cal Newport, somebody send me a message and correct me. I'm going from my memory because this is what I want to say today with no preparation. That's the whole point of this exercise. But it was Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You. 

And the whole idea behind this book is that in actuality, the path to happiness and fulfillment is to go down the road of excellence at what you do, to become a master of what you do. And this is more important and more indicative of what would make a happy, flourishing human being than passion or following your dreams. In other words, you bring your passion to the work. And this brought a great balance to my life. 

I had often heard, do what brings you alive because what the world needs is people that are fully alive. I'm sure I'm saying that quote wrong, but it's something very much like that. And I believe that. I believe that. And there may be some truth to it, but Cal Newport, I think it would be more like, be alive in what you do until you're proficient and excellent at it, and it will fill you with joy and flourishing. So there's a lot to bringing passion to your work. This opened me up to understand more how a technician or a scientist or a doctor or a researcher or even a janitor or a restaurant worker or any kind of work can become something you become passionate about. In fact, for God to bring you forward at one point or another, you're going to have to learn to take joy in the labor that he has given you, regardless of whether you're following your dreams. 

So how many times have you heard the story, I left behind my miserable job and followed my dreams? I think there are times where God says, jump out of the boat. So I'm not putting that down. Get out of the boat. Pursue Jesus on the water. Walk on the water. There's times for that, but there's also times for, I am really good at mending these fishing nets. I make the best fishing nets. I'm really good at finding the spot on the Sea of Galilee where if we throw our nets in here, we're going to catch a lot of fish. I know how to haggle with the guys in town. I am and make money for my family. I am an excellent fisherman, businessman, net mender, and I'm passionate about it because I have gotten proficient and excellent. 

So I'm hoping you get a little glimpse here of the collision between practical and dream. They're both real. At some point, it's...It seems that all of us have to go through a season where we become proficient and excellent at something that may or not be a passion in and of itself. In fact, if you follow your passion, what do you do when your passion wears out? You need things in your character that keep you going whether you feel the passion or whether you don't. 

And you can do things to stoke your passion. But whatever God has put in front of you, bring the passion of doing it for Him to the job. Bring the passion of doing excellence and creating beauty and serving your fellow man to whatever job, no matter how crazy it might seem. 

I had a job once where I was throwing, well there was many things we did, but on some days I was sitting on a line of cereal boxes that were going past me before the cereal was put in the box, and my job was to throw a little toy in there for the kids. So I'm standing there with boxes of these things, throwing them in the box. Talk about monotonous. It was a monotonous job. It was hard to stay awake no matter how much sleep you got because it was just like mind-numbing. And unfortunately I was facing a clock. It would have been better if I couldn't see the clock. 

But I'm asking you this question, what if that's the job you're in right now? Can you be excellent? Can you be passionate about being excellent at throwing toys in the cereal box? Hopefully they have a machine doing that now. Now I'm not saying you have to feel passion all day. It is monotonous. There may be struggles. I'm talking about your overall view of life and who are you doing it for. 

If you will be faithful to the thing that God has put in front of you, I believe one of two things will happen. That thing will become your dream. You will learn to love it and be passionate about it and be able to bless and inspire others with the quality of your work and serve others with the quality of your work and the quality of your person. Or there will come a day where God says that thing in the back of your mind where you wanted to be a writer or an artist or something, a businessman, you have a business vision that you want to launch. There may come a day where God says, jump out of the boat and pursue that. 

But one way or the other, bring your passion to the work. Whether you're in the mundane season of life, make it un-mundane, is that a word? Make it un-mundane by bringing your passion for excellence and serving others and delighting the Lord in your work. So these things are not necessarily in conflict. 

I mean, the Bible does talk in Proverbs about kind of the worthless dreamer who pursues empty pursuits, just pursuing a dream without any practicality to it. So one way or another, you're going to have to get the character in your life to do what it takes to make the dream happen if God has given you a dream. You can't just kind of step out of the boat and then stand there and go, now everything's done. You've got to march across the sea. You've got to go to where God has called you. You've still got to work with your hands and do some of the mundane things and overcome the obstacles and challenges that come your way. 

So either way, wherever you're at, mundane season, release in the dream season, the mundane has become your dream season. Do it with excellence, service to God, service to your fellow man. Beauty with your hands, no matter how simple or silly it might seem. 

Imagine a world filled with people like that. What kind of world would we live in if people were like that? 

So does God want you to be a dreamer or does God want you to be a practical down-to-earth person? Yes. 

There could be different personalities that one glows more than the other and that's okay. But at the end of the day, it takes both. Either you become passionate about what you're doing or God releases you into something passionate. 

So be a kingdom dreamer and also be a person who brings dream, the dreams of God into the mundane and creates beauty there. 

I hope that inspires you and gives you something to think about. Thank you so much for listening. 

This is Jon Davis and Jon's Voice Notes, signing off.