dreaming with God

as i stepped on the bus today on the way home from school, i was immediately met with a cloud of second-hand smokiness. anyone who has ever ridden a bus, much less walked through lake city or kenmore (coincidentally where my bus takes me twice a day) knows that these are the local hot-spots for chain smokers. and i'm not just talking a pack or two a day chain smokers- i mean 'i smoke so much my beard is turning yellow and i can hold the cigarettes in my mouth using the gaps in my teeth' kind of chain smokers. i know, this is hardly the perfect set-up for a post titled 'dreaming with God,' but it was the cause of me curling up in the back of the bus, closing my eyes, and trying to distract my nose- only something supernatural could cure that smell :).

anyways. as i was recoiling from the stank of the bus, i let my mind wander onto my life and what i wanted to do with myself when i grew up. then i realized- 'wait! i am grown-up! oh man, what am i going to do with myself now?' that's when i decided to take a chance and let myself dream for a while. anyone who knows me can tell that i like to live in the real world, where everything is planned out and i know exactly where i am going and how i am going to get there; so this was a big step for me. what would i do with my life if i decided not to limit what God could do through me. various things ran through my head- ambassador to a spanish-speaking country, on the US council of foreign relations, advisor to the president. things of grandeur that would necessitate the hand of God in a big way.

the strange thing was, as i began to remove my self-imposed limits, i felt like my current life made so much more sense. i'm not biding my time in college, trying to add another notch to the resumé so i can fulfill one of my too-small dreams. life is the way that it is because i have submitted to a plan that is greater than me. so when i find myself asking, 'what am i doing here again?' i can answer with a few simple phrases. i'm here to be guided. i'm here to be used. i'm here to dream.