“You’re not a dreamer, you’re a talker,”  says my adoring husband as we discuss rather ardently the differences between a dreamer and a realist.  It was actually a marvelous conversation (and his statement rather cracked me up).  A conversation in which we realized where we both sit in the dreamer-realist spectrum, and found ourselves able to hold a greater understanding of our current bends based on where life currently holds our dreams and our fears.  We wondered what makes a dreamer: someone who pursues with determination and vigor, and in our culture, we celebrate dreamers for they go [seemingly] without fear and with an ease of attitude towards risk.  Realists, on the other hand, cannot snub their noses, for the dreamers are the ones celebrated, but inwardly they cringe at job quitters that have nothing on the horizon but hopes, and entrepreneurs that borrow vast sums of money for ventures that are by no means a sure thing.  The way we parade dream and risk makes it easy to fault the realist for their lack of confident pursuit, tending more tenaciously to humdrum realities, like bills and everyday provision.  Although dreamers should not have it off so easy.  They may bring romanticism to the unknown, but they face a rather dangerous frailty – discontentment.  The future is always more glorious than the present and the celebration of what is becomes rather lost in the anticipation of what is not. 

“I fear that you will bankrupt us.”  I can appreciate Jordan’s response to my wondering what about me that he would consider a present fear.  And I understand it, because right now he is pressing into his “realist” side, while I, on the other hand acknowledged a fear that we will be ‘stuck’.  My dreamer persona is easily climbing to the front of my conscious, as I have nothing but the space to dream, while he is heavy with a desire to find the vocational work that will provide for his family.  Now granted, we acknowledged that those fears are only in part, because I recognize the dreamer in him and he has seen the realist in me.  Though our fears are rather a telling thing.  The realist fears that what they have will not be stewarded well and tossed into oblivion for a blind pursuit that leads towards recklessness and disappointment.  Something that responsibility tends well to and dreamers need to be well reminded of, even though complacency is left in its stead.  The dreamer fears that this is it.  If not attacked with forward movement, life will remain uninterestingly steady and underutilized to its full, a shortcoming to potential and an injustice to ability, yet left with a dark inability to look at what you have as plenty, and to find a loss of relationship and provision a better alternative to contentment.

Expectation: A strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.

When we consider expectations, it might be safe to say that we attribute it more immediately to our relationships, but in writing last week I knew there was a side of expectation that is equally defeating to us.  Whether a realist or dreamer (and may we always strive to maintain a bit of both) our propensity towards the future drives a longing for responsible consistency or untethered pursuit, both of which place an anchor on what may be here one day and gone the next.  We can hide realism under responsibility and dreams under determination, but they both carry with them the weight of a hope in what will always remain unsure. So to the realist, may your trust in consistency and provision be balanced with a reminder that the only sure thing is today.  And to the dreamer, may your reminder be the same, and may you strive for that with a celebration of what is now and not the hope of what is to come.

EXPOSITION: When you consider your expectations for the future, do they rest in provision or pursuit?  Do you fear being stuck or going bankrupt?  Have your expectations for either security or future glory left you unable to embrace the now you have been given?

RISE: There truly is no other antidote for fear or discontentment than gratefulness.  Consider how you might live more deeply grateful, rather than trying to suppress your realist or dreaming tendencies. 

Here are two ways we, as a family, have chosen to pursue and cultivate contentment: We often begin our mornings sharing aloud a piece of thanks.  In our times of prayer together we focus on being thankful, even as a forerunner to any petition, and it has been a beautiful thing to see that pattern of prayer already instilled in our three year old. 

DENOUEMENT: “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” (the words of Paul from a letter to Timothy)