The year was 1998, the month was July, and I was 21 years old. And I was in Africa, somewhere, standing on a platform before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. I was preaching powerfully and the Spirit of God was moving over the crowd in powerful ways. At the close of my message, tens of thousands of people lifted their hands to indicate their decision to embrace Christ as their Lord and Savior. Tears filled their eyes as they invited him to come into their hearts. Then I began to pray for the sick, and miracles began to breakout . . . hundreds of them! The blind saw, the lame walked, the deaf heard, the mute spoke, many demons came out of many who were oppressed . . .
It was such a powerful experience . . . until the sight of a mattress hurtling straight for my windshield shut down my dream and snatched my consciousness back to the present moment.
I was no longer in Africa; I was on I5, headed for Pasadena, California where I was moving to go to seminary. My dad was driving his van just ahead of me and my mattress had been tied down to his roof with nylon ropes. But those ropes suddenly snapped, and that mattress came hurtling right at my car!
In that moment, time seemed to slow down and I assessed the situation one millisecond at a time. Could I swerve around the mattress? Not enough time, and it could be even more dangerous than getting hit by a mattress. The best thing I could do was try to stop, since there was no one behind me. That way, even if the mattress hit my windshield, I would have avoided the combination of my speed and its speed.
But just as I slammed on the brakes, a gust of wind coming from the east blew the mattress to the side of the road, and the crisis was averted. My dad and I pulled over, retied the mattress to the roof of his van, and we continued the trek to Pasadena. But even though we still had another three and a half hours of the journey to go, I found it hard to recover the dream. For the rest of the trip, I focused my attention on avoiding the dangers of my present, rather than anticipating the blessings of my future.
That dream had become a daily occurrence for me. It was more than a daydream; it was my destiny, and my heart and mind were set upon fulfilling it one day.The snapping of those ropes resulted in the interruption of my dream. I discovered in that moment that I could not be conscious of both danger and the dream; one had to cede to the other.
The great challenge of leadership is that leaders must be conscious of the dangers of the journey without losing their connection to the dream of the destination. Only a leader can do that! Learning to be a leader means learning to do that!
Those who live in the dream while ignoring the dangers are not leaders; their vehicles get smashed and they lose their lives. Those who live in the danger while ignoring the dream are not leaders; their vehicles stay safe, but they never go anywhere worth going.
The key to leadership is wakeful dreaming . . . mindfulness. I’m ready to deal with the danger, but I will never let it rob me of my dream! I can navigate my way through danger, but I will never forget that the goal is not to avert danger, but to arrive at my destination.
What kind of leader are you? Are you a reckless dreamer? Or are you a prisoner of safety? Has the sight of danger robbed you of your vision for the future? Or has your vision for the future blinded you to the many dangers, toils and snares that you must overcome in order to arrive there?
I’ve had to learn, and I continue to have to learn, how to correctly define the relationship between danger and the dream. I’ve had to learn not to allow those categories to mix; the danger should never cause me to diminish my dream, and the dream should never cause me to neglect the challenges that stand in the way!
And if your life will stand for anything worth standing for, you’ll have to learn how to do both as well.
So what about you? Are you more conscious of your dreams or your dangers? What do you think you need to do in order to bring them into the right relationship with each other? I’d love it if you’d let me know by leaving a comment below. 🙂
