I was on a church retreat several years ago with my wife. She was on staff with the church, and the folks there were either staff members or the spouse of a staff member.

The first night at dinner, the lead pastor, a guy named Rob, asked us each to name a dream that we would like to live out. Some wanted to preach in front of thousands. Some wanted to lead worship for huge crowds. One person wanted to own a farm.

I had two possible dreams that I wanted to manifest. The first one was to own a brewpub where I could brew beer and serve people great food. The second one was to write a fantasy fiction novel.

When I voiced this, Rob asked if I had a story in mind. I did. It was a story that had started developing in my head almost ten years before. The story was centered on a walking stick that I had made while working at summer camp. The plot had developed in a peculiar way. I had started writing e-mails back and forth with a friend from camp about the adventures of a young man with a walking stick roaming through a fantastic and wondrous land filled with elves, dwarves, wizards, goblins, dragons, orcs, and other fantasy creatures. At first the e-mails were more humorous than serious, but over time, I began to see a story taking shape that would eventually inspire me to write.

Before that retreat, I hadn’t written a single word. Rob asked me to write the first chapter and send it to him. After we left the retreat, it took me two weeks to get it written in Word.

He loved it.

That first chapter was written during a tumultuous time in my life. My third child was almost one year old. My two older ones were five and three. I had just recently graduated from Western Michigan University with a Masters degree in statistics. I was beginning a job with a healthcare company as an application trainer for a new medical records system that was being implemented.

Before studying for that degree, I had worked at Panera Bread for several months.

Before Panera Bread, I had just lost my job as a campus pastor.

Most of my attention leading up to that retreat had been focused on surviving and helping my family to survive. Dreaming was something that gave me hope, but it didn’t really pay the bills. Starting to dream again about writing for a living seemed dangerous, fruitless, useless.

The consequence of not dreaming is much worse.

Without dreams, I would have lost hope. Without dreams, I would have had nothing to shoot for, nothing to aspire to. Without dreams, I would not have had anything in me to write a first chapter.

Without writing that first chapter, I would not have gone on to write thirty more. Without all those chapters, I would not have been inspired to write another book, the very book that I’m about to publish.

It is important to dream. It’s important to imagine better things in the world. Without such dreams, we lose hope and we miss out on the life God has for us.

I believe we are created in God’s image. God is a creator, and he has made us to be creative along with him. He gave dominion over the earth to us, his children. The prophet Joel said that, when God poured out his Spirit on all flesh, young men would see visions and old men would dream dreams, that sons and daughters would prophesy.

My dream to become an author is coming true, but it goes well beyond me. My hope is to invite young men and women to conceive in their minds and heart visions of a world made beautiful, to inspire old men and women to dream again and leave a legacy of love and goodness in our world.

I believe that before you can bring good changes into the world, you must be able to imagine the change. God gives his children imagination, dreams, and wonders so that they in turn can give life and flesh to those dreams in this wonderful world that he has created.

What are you dreaming about?

What is one dream that you want to fulfill before you die?