I grew up in a certain part of the world with little mountains and hills; at least to a 7-year-old boy, those giant rocks seemed like mountains. It was a thing among us children to run from one side of the smaller hills to the other; being inquisitive was natural and we wanted to see what was on the other side. We often wondered what was on the other side of the “bigger hills” (mountains) we couldn’t get over. We could sit around for days unending telling tales of what kind of people might be living in those parts of the world. We imagined it all. Our immediate vision of the other side was limited, but our imagination was not.

I heard a sermon the other day on seeing beyond your current situation and into your dreams and aspirations. Similar to the story from my childhood, our dreams and aspirations sometimes seem to be beyond the mountains. The question asked in that sermon was “how far can you see?” One of the biblical text used was in Genesis 15:5 where God took Abraham out to see the stars and express to him how many offspring he’ll have. Abraham, an elderly man with a wife well above a birthing age had to see the vision beyond what reality seemed to be. Another text was the story of Joseph while in prison in Genesis 40, he was able to see himself living in the palace and never gave up hope. He had to look beyond what was right before him.

The first challenge here is for you to see beyond what you may be going through and imagine yourself in a better place, a place of promise. But you must be cautioned not to only imagine alone and never plan to bring your dreams to reality. My friends and I were small kids watching over the mountains, imagining what was on the other side but rarely planned on getting there; the mountain seemed a little too big for our dreams.

The second challenge beyond being imaginative is hashing out the plan to bring that imagination to fruition. I read a story the other day about 3 fishes who were swimming in a river bank. One was called “Plan ahead”, the second called “Think fast” and the third named “Wait and see”. A fisherman came by the river and decided it was too late to fish one evening and planned to come back the next day. All three fishes heard him say he would be back in the morning. “Plan ahead” decided to swim down the river that night to avoid getting caught in the morning. “Think fast,” said to himself that he would think of something and act accordingly if he got caught. While “Wait and see” was too lazy to think about what to do and made no plans. The next day when the fisherman came, he cast his net and in came 2 fishes, “Think fast” and “Wait and see”. After realizing he had been caught, “Think fast” quickly thought fast, rolled over and played dead. The fisherman was distraught and disappointed, so he tossed him back in the river. But “Wait and see” didn’t plan like “Plan ahead” to leave that part of the river the night before, nor could he think quickly like “Think fast”, so he was caught and taken home for supper.

The morale of the story is to be imaginative, dream big and see beyond your current situation, but create a plan for your vision. You have to plan ahead not just dream about it. Your dreams will only remain dreams if you do nothing. Bring your dreams to fruition by planning accordingly.

Best wishes,

L.B.

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