Dreaming Big Dreams
This past weekend, the golfing world watched phenom Scottie Scheffler rack up another major victory at The Open Championship in Northern Ireland. For those who do not follow golf, there are dozens of professional golf tournaments held every year, but four of them are considered the major tournaments: The Masters, The U.S. Open, The Open Championship, and The PGA Championship. Twenty-nine-year-old Scheffler has won major tournaments 4 times, including twice at The Masters; most professional golfers never win even one. He is now just a U.S. Open victory away from becoming the seventh golfer ever to complete the career grand slam. He joins Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Gary Player as the only golfers to win the Open, Masters, and PGA Championship before age 30. The great golfer, Rory McIlroy, said of Scheffler after his victory at The Open this weekend:
“He is the bar that we’re all trying to get to. In a historical context, you could argue that there’s only maybe two or three players in the history of the game that have been on a run [like] the one that Scottie’s been on here for the last 24 to 36 months. Incredibly impressive.”(1)
Scheffler is popular with fans, not just because of his incredible skill, but also because of his humility and perspective. God and family come first, then golf, which he adamantly states does not define him as a person, even though he has always wanted to be a professional golfer. Regarding this dream, he states that even as a young boy, he dressed like the pros, who are not allowed to wear shorts in professional tournaments. In an interview, Scottie said, “…growing up, when we moved to Texas, I always wore pants when I used to go practice because I wanted to play professionally. It would be like 100 degrees outside. They’d all be making fun of me, but I always used to wear pants. So as long as I can remember, this is what I wanted to do.”(2) The power of a dream!
As I watched Scheffler win The Open, his statement regarding dreaming and dressing like the pros reminded me of a story I relate in my book, Dream:
“When Steve Cauthen was nine, his job was helping his father on the farm. In between pitching hay, he liked jumping on the packed bales, pretending he was on a racehorse. Once when his father said, ‘Stop daydreaming, boy, and put the bale in the truck,’ Steve answered, ‘I will as soon as I win the Belmont Stakes.’
“And sure enough, the young man who began his career by riding a bale of hay went on to win the Triple Crown – at age eighteen! His dream, as a nine-year-old, propelled Steve Cauthen to become one of the most successful jockeys in the world.”(3)
Incredible.
The Bible has a lot to say about dreaming. One of the interesting and enlightening insights it provides us is that dreaming and creating both spring from the same Biblical Hebrew word. Yatsar means “to create”; yetser, a slightly different form of the word, means “imagination, conception, and thought.”(4) Yetser refers to the plans and purposes formed in the mind, which, of course, include dreaming; yatsar is the resulting act of creation. So the power to create begins with the ability to dream. Another way to say it would be that dreaming unlocks our power to create or accomplish.
Not surprisingly, this is how God functions. Isaiah 46:10 states that He declares the end from the beginning. In other words, He sees or imagines the end result (yetser), backs up to form the plan or design, then begins creating (yatsar). He dreams, then He creates.
Likewise, when God fashioned us humans in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-28), He placed within us a level of His ability to imagine and create. We have the God-given ability to conceive something in our minds, which then awakens the creativity and innovation He has placed within us. Like Him, we dream; then we create the dream, bringing it to life. If we don’t dream, we won’t create. Period. But if we do dream, we MUST create. Necessity isn’t the mother of invention; dreams are! Consider these cases in point.
We have airplanes because a couple of brothers dreamed of conquering gravity and flying. Eventually, we went to the moon because someone dared to dream we could conquer space.
We have lightbulbs because a man dreamed of light without a fire. People continued to dream, and now we have lasers.
Telephones were invented because a dreaming mind conceived the outlandish concept of talking through wires. But dreaming begets dreaming, so someone imagined telephones without the wires, and cell phones were born. Crazy!
Cars exist because someone dared to dream of a horseless carriage. Henry Ford dreamed of mass-producing these man-made beasts. Another dreamer dreamed of making money by paving roads for those amazing new machines, and, eventually, someone dared to dream of a network of roads all across America without one single stoplight or stop sign. Think about it: Through the innovative minds of a few inspired dreamers, traveling went from horse-drawn, covered wagons on rutted, unmapped trails to air-conditioned automobiles on interstate highways – using a GPS, by the way!
Some nerd dreamed of the computer. Someone “nerdier” dreamed they could be portable, not bad since initially, one computer filled up an entire room. Then came the Internet…wireless…Facebook…X…Instagram…Google. And the multizillionaire nerds are still laughing. And tweeting. (Someone even had to dream of new words for all these crazy ideas.)
Someone dreamed of a television, and – it was inevitable – some guy dreamed of changing the channel without getting out of the recliner. Yep, along came the remote.
All of these once-unbelievable concepts began with a dream. Dreaming, then, unlocked creativity. And by the way, dreams don’t have to be big to be substantial in their impact. Consider these “insignificant” dreams:
Someone got tired of their papers being displaced and dreamed of a paper clip. (They also made sure they were small enough to lose easily, so we would have to buy trillions of them.)
Annoyance over trapped food inspired the toothpick dream.
A would-be writer grew tired of drawing in the dirt and dreamed of a pencil.
A guy with sore feet from going barefoot dreamed of sandals. A woman dreamed of making them stylish. Someone else dreamed of making them comfortable and voilà – flip-flops were born!
No doubt about it! Dreaming unlocks creativity.
God has dreamed and planned a Third Great Awakening in America. It has been almost 200 years since the Second Great Awakening – we’re overdue. I tapped into His heart 40 years ago and have been dreaming with Him ever since. This awakening has begun. And, of course, it will not be limited to America. As Robin Mark says in his classic song, “Revival,” “Sure as gold is precious and the honey sweet,”(5) God is bringing this great outpouring of Holy Spirit to the earth.
Thank you, Scottie Scheffler, for reminding me of the power of dreams.
Pray with me:
Father, You dreamed of family. We are overwhelmed to be part of the answer to this dream. As such, You made us like You – in Your image and likeness – giving us the incredible ability to dream and create. I pray for everyone who reads or listens to this, that they will tap into this ability and become the complete expression of what You intended for them. For anyone who has stopped dreaming due to hope deferred, heal their heart and restore their dreaming nature.
Help each of us to make certain that our dreaming involves You and the purpose for which You created us. Let this define us. We know that life’s ultimate fulfillment is found in accomplishing the purpose for which You made us. Give us hearts to dream dreams of eternal significance, not wasting our dreaming nature on temporal things alone. May we all be Kingdom dreamers!
Remind us that our prayers for revival are not selfish; they are based on Your dream. You have family members who have not yet been born again. Our prayers birth Your dreams; keep us reminded of this. We ask You today for laborers to enter the harvest fields, just as Christ instructed us (Matthew 9:38). We ask for spiritual rain (Zechariah 10:1); let it be a mighty deluge. All of this we pray in Yeshua‘s name. Amen.
You can hear Robin Mark’s entire song “REVIVAL” taken from the “Revival in Belfast” album here.
Click on the link below to watch the full video.
Portions of today’s post were taken from my book DREAM, published by Baker Books.
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/sport/other-sport/golf/rory-mcilroy-scottie-scheffler-open-32102136
PGA Tour Facebook post, September 2, 2024.
Denis Waitley and Reni L. Witt, The Joys of Working (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), p. 33.
Spiros Zodhiates, ed., Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible (Chattanooga: AMG, 1990), 1732.
“REVIVAL” songwriters: Bruce Dickinson, Andy Julian Paul, Michael Lee, James Dickinson, Toby Matthew Jepson, Mark Dixon Plunkett. Revival lyrics ©Polygram Music Publishing Ltd. GV, Unichappell Music Inc., Birdwing Music, Forrest Richard Betts Music, Curb Word Music.