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After being at HPPC for a few weeks, I had a gathering with several of the Young Adult Community leaders. It was a pretty casual night of cooking, eating, and conversation. I mostly just wanted to hear their hearts.

As we started to pick up the conversation, I threw out some version of the question, “If you had unlimited resources and could devote yourself to it for the rest of your life, what would you do?”

The point of the question is to get you dreaming. Thinking. Hoping. Wishing. Wanting something better for the world, and having every resource at your disposal to get it done. People, time, money, energy. You wouldn’t have to worry about supporting yourself, it would be taken care of.

What would you do?

Eradicate poverty in inner-city Dallas? Eat as much cake as possible? Create a cure for AIDS?

A week or so later, one of the people at the gathering approached me and said they appreciated the question. They said they had never been asked to think about something like that. It’s something so outside the realm of possibility, after all…

But is it?

And more importantly, how can we afford NOT to ask that question and countless questions that are just like it?

Can we afford to be disciples without vision? Wannabe doers without dreams? Committed attenders without cultivating passions?

The calling of Jesus is multi-faceted but without question entangled with the idea that we are called to see and fight for a better world. Not for our salvation, but for the unification of the Created with the Creator.

What would it look like for our world to be united with the Creator? And why has God so daringly entrusted us with that vision?

Go and dream. Take some time today, tomorrow, whatever — just think about something bigger than yourself.

The Creation is screaming and crying and breaking. We are listening and capable, by the power of God, the same power that heard the descendants of Abraham struggling in Egyptian bondage. He acted on their behalf. But first, he gave Moses a dream.  A dream of a land that would serve a better purpose, that would be a blessing for the world–the same dream he gave Abraham.

If God has called you out of bondage, pay attention. He didn’t stop calling people out when he called you.

+ I wrote this post on 1 July 2009 for a blog of the Praxis sub-community of HPPC. I was picking through the blog and thought some of the writings deserved reposting, if only because their heartbeat is still necessary. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it.