Fog

So this morning, Leslie woke me up at 4:19 and was too scared to sleep. So I went into her room to hopefully lay there with her for a bit so she could sleep. But she didn't. In fact, when I did fall asleep, she woke me up to ask if it was time to get up. So I have spent the day in a slight fog of sleepiness fought off only by lots of Dr. Pepper.
Most of my foggy days are due to Benadryl the night before, and the fact that medicines mess me up when it comes to coherency. I just sort of sleep walk through the day.
When I got to thinking about it today, I realized that we all seem to get to a point where life itself seems a constant fog. We shuffle through our days, mumbling stuff, bumping into things and people, mindlessly performing the scheduled tasks. Our fog may be a fog of apathy, fear, resignation, anger, pain, boredom, disappointment, or sense of failure. But we all seem to be in a fog, headed into one, or escaping one.
In a little over a week, the Gate begins a series basically about beginnings and the identity we develop in young adulthood. It's making me think about that time in my life, when I was full of hope and optimism (older people called me naive). I saw problems as challenges to over come, and went after them, not giving up, but looking to a new line of attack when things fell apart.
Somewhere in my past, that changed.
The older or more experienced people's advice that "You just can't change that," or "Thats too much to take on" began to collect in the air around me. Then, the weariness of fighting sets in, and then the 'responsibilities of adulthood,' then the idea that those people were right- all these collected into a fog.
The fog is finally lifting for me- the result of starting to dream again, to hope, to expect big things. Maybe its being around college students, who still have these in abundance, or maybe its just starting to trust God to be who He says he is, once again. Whatever it is, it makes me want to challenge the Gate, and you reading this, to press on. Keep dreaming big, keep trying to change the unchangeable, reach the unreachable. And those folks who try to talk you down, kick them in the teeth and keep going. (Not literally, though there are times....)
The Gate is about dreams. Its about a dream to reach young adults and college students for Christ. A dream that this generation can and will restore the passion of the Body of Christ. A dream that students can BE the church, not just a part of it. Its also a dream that God will show up in our community, change it, and set free His Spirit upon us all. We're are seeing these things happen, and new dreams are being born as we speak. Not just dreams we have for the church, but dreams the individuals that make up the church are having.
So, put down the Benadryl, grab your DP (or caffeine of choice) and let's wake up. Things are about to get interesting.