Less Dreaming, More Prayer

"It's a great thing to want to do great things for the kingdom of God. However, it's a terrible thing to want to be great in the kingdom of God." - RC Sproul

I really don't know if other people are like this, but I daydream a lot. I'm not talking about the "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" sort of temporary complete detachment from reality, but when my mind wanders or when my eyes are closed and I'm trying to sleep, I drift off into my dreams.

My imaginations are exactly what you would expect from a young guy who struggles with pride - they usually consist of me being some sort of hero. Sometimes it's me being a hero in sports, where I hit some game-winning shot or make the game-winning layout. Other times, I defend some beautiful girl's honor and win over her heart. As I've grown spiritually and started thinking much more about the kingdom of God, many of these imaginations often become imaginations of the great things I would do for God.

Some of the more "dangerous" and obviously sinful imaginations are easier to recognize and suppress immediately. These are those imaginations of being some famous pastor or a sacrificial missionary-martyr. They could often also be as simple as doing something good for the Church and getting a lot of praise and recognition. These sorts of dreams, though extremely tempting to me, are easy to recognize and fight.

It's the imaginations of more imminent works for God that often prove more problematic, especially when God brings something to my mind that I should do that would actually be pretty admirable. For example, upcoming meetings and conversations, or some evangelism or invitation that I'm hoping to make often bring this sort of imagination/dreaming/speculation to my mind.

Recently, as I was driving, God brought one of my old friends to mind that I thought I should encourage to return to church when I got home. In itself, this was a very good thing that I was excited to do. However, I sort of drifted into imagining my conversation with her, and what it would look like. I imagined the different things she would say and how I would respond. Then it sort of hit me. What was I doing? It's good to be prepared for any conversation, but what was the point of allowing my imagination to run wild with simply speculating at the conversation that would happen? If I actually cared about this friend, shouldn't I be spending the time to pray for her, as I know that it is only God who will actually be able to change her heart? Is this dreaming as opposed to praying a symptom of doing good works out of pride rather than love? Am I more concerned with winning God points than I am with the restoration of someone's soul? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much more time I could spend praying as opposed to imagining myself doing something "good" for God.

Prayer matters. Prayer works. I know it. I've experienced it. I know God is sovereign over all. But still I always seem to fall back and rely on my own effort, on my own wisdom and eloquent words instead of the power of God (1 Cor 2). Instead of drifting off into dreams of how I'm going to evangelize to some specific individuals, I need to lay it all in front of God, the only one who can actually do anything about it. Dreaming won't do any good. But prayer will.

[Thinking about it, this "Less _______, more prayer" seems to be a good formula in general. Less complaining, more prayer. Less self-reliance, more prayer. Less fear, more prayer.]