Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. introduced change to an entire generation and ultimately the flow of American society forever when he cast the vision that his dream had created. “I have a dream” is a phrase from the most celebrated speech that Dr. King ever delivered. He spoke at a large rally in Washington, D.C. in 1963 to supporters of the civil rights movement, and stressed the importance of nonviolent protest, and vividly painted his vision of a better future for people of all races in the United States: “I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed”: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” As he shared his heart he stirred a nation and the world with his clear picture of what life in America should be. And he captured the hearts of a generation with his dream.
A dream always produces an action. I have always heard it said that you sow a thought you reap an action, sow an action you reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a destiny. Our dreams seldom remain in the confines of our imagination; they have a way of working out of our heart and into our lives, defining our reality over time. In this way they construct the patterns of our lives and build a roadway that leads us into a certain future. They, like a flooding river, have a way of cutting a path into our tomorrows and adjusting, adapting and sculpting everything in its path until our lives reflect the image and likeness of that dream.
While the dream God has given is a seed He has planted in you, we must understand that we as the soils of His planting are also a mine field. That is true. The enemy through life’s struggles, hardships and wounds has placed dream killer land mines in the soil of our soul. Explosive emotions connected to issues from the past; often wired with low self-esteem detonators, can be the death of a dream that is replete with possibilities even when divinely designed. We must learn to clear these mine fields in preparation for the sowing of our dreams. When God plants a dream into our thinking with its frailties and weaknesses, He has to navigate it through the mental mine fields that threaten the survival of the dream at every turn. Faith is the answer. Clearing these mines takes faith. We must learn to walk by faith, allowing God to challenge our thinking with His Word as the Holy Spirit sorts through the treacherous traps the enemy has built into our thinking through the experiences, disappointments, and devastation of the hard knocks of life. But with a Word renewed mind and a heart that has learned to submit to the purpose of the Father we can change the reality of our world aligning it with the will of God in heaven, all through a dream.