Did Jesus Come to Make Children’s Dreams Come True?

Monday, December 18th, 2023     by Lori Roeleveld     4 Comments

Which sounds more like Christmas: dreams or reality?

If you believe all the commercials and holiday specials, Christmas is about making dreams come true. Funny, no one told Jesus. He didn’t come to work for Walt Disney; He came to fulfill His Father’s will.

Ask Mary. It wasn’t her dream to start her married life under a cloud of suspicion.

Ask Joseph. It wasn’t his dream to have his friends wonder if he was a fornicator or a chump.

It wasn’t this young couple’s dream to spend years running and hiding from a powerful and angry king. Nor was it the dream of families in Judea to watch Herod’s soldiers kill their infant sons.

Jesus didn’t come to make dreams come true. He came to teach us to dream better dreams. He came to lead us to the eternal reality that can be our life with God forever because of Jesus.

He arrived a poor child so we knew He understood the pain of going without. He endured rejection, suffering, and trials so we knew He understood our distress, too.

He was misunderstood, betrayed, arrested, beaten, mocked, and humiliated. Those He loved abandoned Him. He faced an unjust conviction and died at the hands of arrogant and manipulative blind guides – while

His mother watched. Christmas isn’t about dreams – not the dreams we normally dream.

It’s a celebration of God’s love for us made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. God came and lived with us. That wasn’t a dream; it was real.

It wasn’t about making our dreams come true. It was about delivering us from the lesser dreams of this world so we are free to dream eternal dreams.

He is the originator of dreams. We are His design and He designed us to dream. But we have come under the curse of one who convinced us to trade our glory for lesser dreams. That is why we spend the holidays at Stuff-Mart thinking that we can purchase all we need.

If you love your children this Christmas, don’t work to make their dreams come true. I mean, of course, get them gifts and enjoy seeing their excitement at receiving a new toy, but don’t imagine that’s the essence of Christmas and don’t teach them it’s the essence either.

Let them know of a greater story than they could ever dream. A reality that makes all our dreams pale in comparison. Help them see the wonder of love, beauty, joy, and peace that never end.

And if you are childless or your children are grown and far away, the wonder of Christmas can still be yours because it’s not about making children’s dreams come true. It’s about living in the beautiful light of Jesus’ love forever. You are His child. You live in His love. You know the wonder of the season because it’s Him.

Christmas is our opportunity to dream the best dream – the dream of living in the reality of life with Jesus Christ – one that never ends.

Remember: Jesus didn’t come to make dreams come true. He came to teach us to dream better dreams.

Read: I Peter 1:3-9

Pray: Do you have a dream to release to Jesus? Do it today. Trust it over to Him.

What are your thoughts on Christmas? I respond to every comment and reply to every email. I love hearing from you. Merry Christmas!


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4 Comments

    The Conversation

  1. Mac White says:
    December 18, 2023 at 1:36 pm

    Thanks for always telling it like it is. Better to have living hope than faded dreams.

    My dreams are typically the jumbled flotsam of former situations. My hopes are toward the man you and Peter described in 1 Peter 1. I haven’t seen him yet but I look forward to getting home and seeing him then.

    Reply
  2. Eric L says:
    December 19, 2023 at 10:57 am

    Wow. Not what I expected; nice combo of shock + serendipity. I appreciate the guts it takes for you to say what others are not saying.

    1 Peter 1:3-9 – A hymn to our experience of His salvation plan. Maybe somebody who can do such things could turn that into a song . . .that would be a nice one to meditate on during worship

    Last week I referenced the next verse – I Peter 1:10 – while teaching on Joseph as a type of Jesus, especially emphasizing their rejection and suffering.

    Jesus’ bigger dream was the joy set before him that enabled him to endure the cutting cruelty of betrayal, rejection, humility, and torture. By the 9th hour, death would have been a mercy.

    Our children are going to experience these terrible things, too.

    The trick is for our lives to become a “type” of Jesus’ life, similar to how His was a type of Joseph’s. You can see this in Stephen, when he chooses to imitate Jesus as he himself is being murdered by the same stiff-necked and blind leadership of Temple, Inc.

    Over 30 years our Christmas experience with my larger family does emphasize the wonder of children opening gifts. At times we have felt there was only lip service to the “true meaning of Christmas,” like drinking diet coke . . .along with a whopper and large fries 🙂 Other times, Jesus birth – as the first step on the road to Calvary – was front-and-center.

    It is possible the difference one year to the next was in my own perspective and heart.

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