Vision, or Dreams, as an expression of passion

JOEL+2:28 "And it shall come to pass afterward, ... your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions."

The verse above is not putting down the aged, suggesting that vision belongs to the young but that dreams are the limit of the old. Instead it is a statement of blessing. The reference in Joel is similar to a “land of milk and honey” statement of the Exodus that is full of excitement about what God is going to do as He has revealed it to Joel the prophet. God uses this prophecy to excite His people about a future full of promise and these two statements both speak luxury. Passion is something that an oppressed people could not afford to have, and passion is the stuff of dreams and visions.

Some people see a situation and ask “why” yet others see a solution and ask “why not?” The person who asks why sees the situation as a fait accompli. He, or she, may not enjoy the scenario, however feels powerless to change anything. The dreamer, and the visionary both look at the same set of circumstances, finds the combination unacceptable and dreams up a solution and asks whether this a possible solution? It may be a costly solution, it often is.

The fact is that many of the social reformers of the last 200 years did not die in their beds. They had a cause to pursue and quite often the resistance they met resulted in them being killed to stop them. This is not a new thing. The social reformers of the Old Testament, the prophets, were described as being killed off by the people they came to serve. Jesus said of the religious establishment:

 But you prove that you really are the relatives of the ones who killed the prophets. Matt 23:30

He made the statement to tell them that He was not prepared to play their game, not yet at least.

During the reformation many people with a cause were burnt to death because of their dreams or despatched in other ways because of their beliefs or dreams. When Martin Luther nailed his treatise to the door of the cathedral he would have had a fair idea that he was nailing up a death sentence. William Wilberforce about 300 years later was another who saw something he didn’t like and acted to change it. Wilberforce gave 40 years of his life to the cause of the abolition of the slave trade but he saw the victory. He died three days after hearing the act abolishing slavery had been passed.

Moving forward, we find Martin Luther King standing up publicly and pronouncing “I have a dream.” It was a dream of racial equality between Americas white and black races, within the next week he was dead.  Aung San Suu Kyi the “Opposition Leader” in Myanmar, Mahatma Gandhi, and Poland’s Lech Walesa are just three of a larger body of  dreamers/visionaries who have not been prepared to accept that the conditions of their country and have stood up regardless of the social cost to them personally to attempt change.

This may seem a dark blog, it isn’t. The tradition of these “host of witnesses” is a big part of our calling as christians to rescue the oppressed. Injustice and personal abuse is a daily occurrence around the world, poverty is rampant and people are dying or living under all sorts even today and maybe even in our land. Homelessness in Melbourne is just as big an issue as the orphans who live and work on rubbish tips around the world.

Publisher Malcolm Forbes has been quoted as having said “When you cease to dream, you cease to live”.  This quote is a challenge to each of us. How alive are we and more, what are we doing about our dreams?