I’m not a dreamer.  It’s not that I don’t ever dream.  It’s just that I don’t let myself live in dreamland.  I prefer to live in reality.  What is possible.  What can be done.

Maybe it’s really about living in what I perceive I can control??

That’s why people like Bob Goff and books like Love Does make me uncomfortable.  Bob’s a dreamer and his book encourages people to live outside the bounds of reality.

Several years ago I was working on a marketing team for a big project our company was launching.  The consultant we hired challenged each of us dream up the biggest idea that we could think of to promote the project.  And playing to our competitive nature he motivated us with a pretty significant prize for the best idea.  A couple of weeks later we reconvened to share our big ideas.  Person by person we went around the table.  There were truly some amazing ideas and a few that were so audacious there was no way that they would be possible.  After some duration of time, the consultant and our boss chose the winner.  To my utter dismay they awarded the grand prize to the guy whose idea I believed had the least chance of being possible!  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in the idea.  It was just that there was actually a legal reason why we couldn’t do what he wanted to do.

That day made me really mad at the dreamers… at least the dreamers who never live in reality.  We never did implement the grand prize winning idea which further solidified in my mind that crazy dreaming doesn’t serve a very useful purpose.

This is why I was sure I was not going to like Bob Goff.  Everything I had heard about him suggested that he rewards dreamers.

Yes, Bob definitely rewards dreamers but more importantly he shares how he has beckoned dreams to reality.  He knows how to shake off the pressure of conventionality and embrace the whimsy of a dream.  He doesn’t shirk responsibility but he doesn’t allow himself to become bound to unnecessarily imposed responsibility.  He sees God as a friend and companion… someone who is for him and with him… a God who believes in dreams and makes way for the seemingly impossible.

Technically I don’t know Bob Goff yet but if what he’s written is true about him (the skeptic in me still has trouble believing people like him are real)… if he’s lived with the whimsy and wonder and passion that he talks about, I want to be like that too.

Frankly, I picked up a copy of Love Does because everyone was talking about it.  I was pretty sure it would feel fluffy and happy and unrealistic.  But instead I’ve found myself questioning the boundaries I’ve built about what’s possible.

Could it be that God is just waiting for me to dream big enough for Him to show up in my life in extraordinary ways?

Could this realist find more purpose in dreaming?

Those are the questions Bob’s got me thinking as I reluctantly close the back cover secretly wishing for more stories.  When I meet him, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna actually like him!

Have you let yourself become bound by reality rather than free to dream?  What would it look like if you did what Bob suggests and “discover a secretly incredible life in an ordinary world”?