Whose Dream?

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     Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
     “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
     “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
     “We can,” they answered.
     Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”   

Mark 10:35-40, Emphasis supplied

I was reading the above passage the other day and marveling: What hubris these two guys showed, coming and asking Jesus to agree that He'd give them whatever they asked for! They hadn't even told Him yet what they wanted. What did they think He was, a genie in a bottle?

And then it struck me: I ask God all the time to help me achieve my dreams. All the time. "Please do this for my family member. Please do that for me. Please change this flawed quality in me (like, overnight). Please do such-and-such for the organization for which I work. Please do so-and-so for my friend." It's all about what I dream to be best for me and those people and things I care about.

Shouldn't I instead be asking God, "How can I help You achieve YOUR dreams?

It's not about my dreams, I realized--rather late in life, I'm sorry to say--, it's about God's.

Well, that sounds nice. But you have to keep reading.

Jesus asked if they could drink the cup he had to drink, and that was no blithe question. I have noticed that when you live a life of trying to follow Jesus, and you keep at it, sooner or later there's some kind of bitter cup you have to drink. And I mean bitter. Heart-wrenching, disappointing, painful. Why that is, I don't know. I can only testify at this point in life that there is always some great Good that emerges from such an experience. Sometimes, it's way down the road, with a long and excruciating wait. But perhaps that great Good contributes in an inexplicable way to God realizing His dreams for me or for His purposes in the situation where I am.

I grew up reading books about heroes. My heroes were Bible characters, pioneers, missionaries, and the fathers and mothers of the United States as a country. They were people who successfully met challenges and surmounted obstacles and ended up with satisfying, all-loose-ends-tied-up lives that were meaningful and left a legacy. As a child I wanted to become one of those. In my heart there was a dream that I would live a book-worthy story, leave a memorable legacy. That desire has persisted throughout my life, along with the feeling that I was a part of something much bigger than me, a story that was being written about God in the long run. I wanted to be a worthy character.

Reading this passage and meditating on its message for me, I realized that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter about the book-worthy story. It doesn't matter about the memorable legacy. I don't need to care about being a character on the great stage of the universe, even if--in some invisible way--I am. What really matters is that question: God, how can I help You make Your dream come true?