“Living the dream.’ I hear that statement a lot; “I’m just living the dream.” Usually, when people say that, they are referring to their belief that their situation in life is exactly what they hoped it would be. It can refer to their relationships, income, job, locality, health etc.
The problem with that kind of definition of “living the dream” is that all those things are temporal and, therefore, temporary. More importantly, we were created for something much bigger, and none of those things I listed above can truly satisfy the human heart. 1 Timothy 6:12 says, “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called,” and verse 19 of that same chapter admonishes us to “take hold of that which is life indeed.” Eternal life is simply our union with the life of Jesus that we get to experience now and throughout the ages to come. (1 John 1:1-2)
God had a dream for mankind when He created us, and that is that we would carry His presence, manifest His likeness, and exercise His dominion on the earth. When Adam and Eve fell, the indwelling presence of God was forfeited, and yet if you read through chapter 3 of Genesis, you will discover that God did not give up on His dream for mankind. Jesus came and died on the cross, taking who we were and what we had done to the place of execution. On the third day, God’s dream was once again realized, and a whole new humanity was raised up in union with Christ. When someone by faith receives this gift from God, they are born again into THE DREAM.
I wake up every day as a Christian living the dream because I am in Christ, and that has absolutely nothing to do with my situation or circumstance in life. Every day I’m invited to participate in the experience of The presence of Jesus living through me, and in the process, I get to manifest His likeness and exercise His dominion.
This is much bigger than any fallen dream I might’ve had before, for God’s dream is always bigger than anything we could ever ask or imagine. It is much bigger than the American dream, and its’ wonderful ideal of freedom, for those who Christ sets free, are free indeed, and nothing can threaten that freedom that’s ours because we are in Christ.