Friday, March 23, 2007

Hold Fast Your Dreams

Author: Louise Driscoll

Hold Fast your dreams!
Within your heart
Keep one, still secret spot
Where dreams may go,
And sheltered grow--
Where doubt and fear are not.
O, keep a place apart,
Within your heart,
For little dreams to go!
Think still of lovely things that are not true.
Let wish and magic work at will in you.
Be sometimes blind to sorrow. Make believe!
Forget the calm that lies
In disillusioned eyes.
Though we all know that we must die,
Yet you and I
May walk like gods and be
Even now at home in immortality.
We see so many ugly things--
Deceits and wrongs and quarrellings;
We know, alas! We know
How quickly fade
The color in the west,
The bloom upon the flower,
The bloom upon the breast
And youth's blind hour.
Yet keep within your heart
A place apart
Where little dreams may go,
May thrive and grow.
Hold fast--hold fast your dreams

How many masters do I serve?

Have you ever gone to an ice cream parlor and wondered which flavor you’re going to have. I have. So many options, way too many choices: “I want the chocolate….no wait the blue bubble gum. Actually I want the maple strawberry marble explosion with sparkles on top…uummm NO!” You see I can never make up my mind, too many options, and way too many choices? Unfortunately it’s like this with my God. Sometimes I wonder who my God is. Or which God I want. Everyday it’s different, like the ice cream….Today I can tell you without a doubt, but other days I can’t. Sometimes I want the vanilla because I’m comfortable with it. Or I want something exciting like the explosion one. But to no avail I can’t choose…Deep in my heart I want plain vanilla but my heart at times craves maple walnut or something different. Why? Why is it so hard to choose? It says, “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other…” (Matthew 6:24). “I am the Lord your God….You must not have any other god but me” (Exodus 20:2-3). I’m weird…talking about serving God and ice cream….How do these relate? They don’t. I’m lactose intolerant. I just thought I’d grab your attention with creamy gooey ice cream. The real issue is having too many masters or “gods.” It’s so easy to be caught up. Anything can be your master and I mean anything: Shopping, reading books, talking about guys, (girls fuse up, we all do it, so don’t deny it!). How do you know if you have a God? That’s easy, how much time do you spend on one thing? That’s the deciding factor. If you’re spending too much time on something besides Jesus, that’s your God, plain and simple. Jesus said, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends” (Revelation 3:20). Jesus wants a lifetime of complete devotion not just a fleeting moment. So how do we do that? How do we give all our selves to him? Well that’s something I still haven’t figured out.