Are you afraid to dream?

I understand that well.

I’m afraid to believe in the things I dream of having, for I fear that they will not work out by default.

It feels defeatist. It is weighty. It isn’t fun at all.

I have a complicated relationship with my dreams, and the fact that I care so much about people.

Sometimes I revile recognition that I am given… for it is processed as “not that big of a deal”.

It brings pleasure and emotion beyond levels I am okay with feeling.

Sounds insane, but I know I’m not the only one.

It’s stressful being “smart”.

It’s stressful being the main guy sometimes… that people approach to solve a problem.

Have that put upon you all the time you start to hate the ability, gift, or what have you.

It can make you feel unknown… for you are known for what comes across as the only utilizable thing about you.

So it feels.

It also sucks when people with anxiety sometimes vent to you with their own.

Wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and insight are not all hot cakes and gravy.

They are heavy traits and things for a person to carry.

Perhaps some of it depends on the perspective of the bearer (my own included), but here is the deal.

People often use wise people to deal with the stuff they need to deal with themselves.

Hear enough nightmares from enough people… I think that explains being afraid to dream and being afraid to go after things that could become the good dreams that you dream.

Why dream of close safe interpersonal connections when the ones that you have (closest or once close) have filled you with nightmares?

Why trust others when they can’t even trust themselves?

I’ve known this way of thinking for a long time.

Inside I am a runner. I am good at it.

By God though… sometimes the paths that we run on to get away from things end.

We hit the finish line so to speak.

Sometimes we forget the oceans which are our souls in the process.

We are afraid to love.

I feel to love deeply there is an element of dreaming deeply that it requires, certainly of feeling deeply.

Where it hurts the most for me is how it gets put on my sense of God.

Not his traits or nature per se, but my experiencing of him.

He is Love.

Many people know that verse.

No question he is the God of dreams as well.

If you are afraid to dream… it can be difficult to feel safe feeling his love.

It’s a two-pronged attack on joy to be honest.

And it is very effective with me.

If you are afraid to feel something that has the nature of a promise (affectionate love for example), and if you are afraid to dream (many good hopeful dreams have a promise element to them) then….

God becomes a hard being to walk with in joy.

He doesn’t become hard to understand – on my end at least – just hard to feel safe with the promises that are in him, the love that he is, and the dreams that he is as a person.

Yes… every promise in him is yes and amen through his son Christ Jesus, but mentally acknowledging that only goes so far.

I have to let myself feel it, not merely let myself know it.

I have to let myself dream, and trust that if they are good for me, and I walk with him moment by moment… he will cause them to be fulfilled.

I have to let myself feel love for him. I do, but to feel it?

That’s scary. That’s what I run from.

There is no point with allying my mind with the people of my past.

If they did or yet choose to sulk in misery that’s their choice.

Having one more comrade in it (namely myself) isn’t going to help them change.

There is a difference between co-suffering and commiserating.

If you share in one’s suffering as they are working on changing… that’s good co-suffering.

If you share in one’s suffering and you find yourself going nowhere with them – because they just want to stay where they are – that’s commiserating. I’d go so far to say that that is self-abuse even.

It’s not worth it, and the toll it takes is hell. I confess I have done that far too many times to myself. The weight of it is atrocious.

As it is stupid to resist medicine for a common cold because you want to “tough it out” – it is far more foolish to resist the kindness of God just because you were “fine without it.”

I’m saying this to myself.

I don’t wish to wish that I am a person that brings people down simply because I hold scorn against happiness itself.

Cynicism can change.

The world doesn’t get anywhere with that noise for sure.

Regardless of the path I wish I could take sometimes… I see the futility of running from love and kindness.

I’ll just end up running into the arms of Loving-Kindness herself.

It is a futile thing to run from God in the long run.

You’ll just run right into him.

For only God can love a god-like and godly heart. The heart shares in a substance that is in common only with him.

That being divine love.

For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him.

Colossians 1:16, WEB

I can change.

Perhaps I already am.

Hope these words are useful for the eyes of another.

Blessings.