forget the plowshare.

I was watching ONE TREE HILL with my sister this afternoon – which is a mistake therein itself – when I finally began understand what really is going on with me.

I mean, with my fields dying.

Recap: I blogged about this earlier in the month, about how God has on three separate occasions told me to let die my dream of working for RELEVANT. But, two of those three times God has revived it. My dream has lived on. But now this third time I think it’s finally dead. I mean, really dead.

Will I intern with them still? Who knows. Will I ever get to shake hands with Cameron Strang? Uh, maybe not.

Turns out RELEVANT is not a magical place to work. Turns out they are a business with a profit motive. (I know Prof. Perry would be saying “I told you so.”) I guess I just thought that since RELEVANT was kind of like a ministry they should treat it like a ministry. Fail.

Anyway, like I said, I was watching ONE TREE HILL with Sam and in the episode basketball star Nathan Scott had been in an accident of some sort and is now bound to a wheelchair, unable to play the sport. He’s bitter throughout the entire episode, drinking way too early in the morning and whatnot. He’s basically a whiner. It’s kind of annoying. (I really dislike this show.)

But at one point in the episode, he goes over to a bookshelf full of trophies and plaques that he had won as a basketball star and starts pulling everything off in a wild rage, his wife and son scared in the next room.

Wow, I thought to myself, what a drama queen.

Here’s this guy in his early twenties who’s been in an accident (though, he will be able to walk again) and his concern is not for the well-being of his family, but for his own pride that was shot to the ground.

I’m sorry Nathan Scott that your boyish dreams died.

But then that got me thinking.

My dreams, like Nathan’s, are dead.

The life I dreamed for myself at age 17 isn’t the life I’m going to have when I’m 25.

It’s just not.

The fields died for Nathan,

just like they died for me.

But, of course, this isn’t the lesson I learned from this show. Because, as stated before, I already learned that my dreams needed to die – and they have – whether I like it or not. But I have not thrown anything off a bookshelf lately. And I have little desire to do so.

Nathan went into that wild rage not just because his dreams died but because he found his identity in those dreams. And when those dreams died, he felt empty. And worthless. And visionless. And un-human.

That’s kind of how I feel right now. I mean, I like having a dream to fight for. I like knowing what I’m going to do in 5 years.

But I have also learned the dangers of finding my identity in my dreams instead of Christ. Maybe that’s why I’m not throwing anything. I’m so upset that this dream has died, but I’m not the one that’s dead –

Just my dreams.

God, I pray that I can accept this season of my life. I hate not having something like that to hope for, but I pray I can find peace in you and nothing else. Help me grow. Help me find my identity in you alone. Remind me that nothing else matters.

June 18, 2009

Posted in Nonfiction and tagged ambition, dreams.