1 Kings 3

Day-Dreams

And Solomon awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. 1 Kings 3:15.

Have you ever dreamt dreams? I expect most of you have. And odd things some of them were! If you want to find the cause of them you won't have very far to seek. It is often because you have eaten too much of something very nice for supper. And the reason why we sometimes dream such very odd and impossible things is that when we dream, although part of our brain is awake the imaginative part yet the bit that judges and reasons is asleep, and so our imagination really runs away with us.

But there is a certain amount of sense in our dreams too, for I think you will find that very often you dream of something you have been thinking about or longing for. Perhaps the holidays are near and you are looking forward to a glorious time in the country. You have been thinking about it for days, and drawing pictures in your mind of all the nice things you are going to do. And when you fall asleep at night, you dream that you are helping to pack the boxes, or that you are setting out for the railway station. Sometimes you find yourself in the train and looking out of the carriage window. But the provoking bit of it is that you so very rarely get to your destination. Just when you are nearing it something happens and you wake up.

Now, Solomon once dreamt a dream. But his was a much more marvelous dream than any of ours; for a wonderful thing happened in it God spoke to him. You know sometimes in the old days God did speak to people in that way. But what I want you to notice is that Solomon dreamt about the thing that had been most in his thoughts and nearest his heart. He had just come to the throne and he wanted to rule wisely and well. But he was very young and he felt he knew very little about it. And so, when God offered to give him whatever he desired, instead of riches, instead of long life or honor, he chose wisdom to rule. If God had appeared to him in the daytime and given him the same choice, he would have made the same decision. Solomon's day-dream was to be a good and wise king, and so his night-dream was the same.

1. I suppose most of you have day-dreams. You dream about what you are going to be and do when you grow up. Now some people fancy that day-dreams are silly things and do more harm than good, but I don't think that and I shall tell you why. If you don ' t dream great things it is very unlikely you will ever do them. It is the people who have dreamt great things who have done them.

But of course the usefulness of day-dreams depends upon what kind of dreams they are. I remember reading about one man whose dream was to have a tremendously big funeral. And he left instructions in his will that every boy or girl who came to his funeral was to receive a small amount of money. So when he died seven thousand boys and girls came to his funeral and received their money!

That seems a very senseless sort of dream, doesn't it? But I'm not sure that some of ours are not just as foolish. However I'm not going to tell you to stop dreaming; only be sure your dreams are worth dreaming.

2. But our dreams are not going to come true without our working for them. The best dreams are not easily realized. So besides dreaming we must do.

There was a boy once called Charles Dickens. When he was quite small he was very poor. But he made up his mind that when he grew up he would buy the beautiful old house of Gadshill near where he lived. Later he became a famous novelist and he did buy Gadshill.

There was another boy whose name was Warren Hastings. He belonged to a very old family who had owned a beautiful estate in Worcestershire called Daylesford. But the family had become very poor, and Warren's grandfather sold the estate. One summer day, when Warren was a very small boy, he lay on the banks of a river near Daylesford, and he resolved that some day he would buy back Daylesford. When he grew to be a man he went to India as a clerk, and after many years he rose to be Governor-General of India. And when he came home he did buy back Daylesford and he lived there till he died.

Both these boys realized their dreams, but they worked hard through long years to do it. Are you prepared to work for your dreams? Are you prepared to take a great deal of trouble to have them realized? If they are good dreams they are worth it.

3. But sometimes we have to give up our dreams. Some day we may awake and find they were dreams, and only dreams.

Sometimes people have to give up their dreams for the sake of others. Do you think they are the poorer for it? No, I think they are all the richer. And I think that some day, somewhere, what they lose will be made up to them.

The other day I read a sort of parable about a boy whose dream it was to write a great book. But his mother was a poor widow and he had a number of younger brothers and sisters; so he had to work very hard as a miner to keep them all, and he had no time to realize his dream.

At last a brother grew old enough to earn, and the boy thought that now he would be able to begin the book. But the brother had just started work when an accident occurred in the mine and he was crippled for life.

After some years the mother died and the boy, who was now a man, thought that at last he would be free to write his book. But just then a married sister lost her husband. She was very poor, and had four little children to provide for. So the brother took the children home and became a father to them.

When they were all grown up and he was old and grey, he thought that at last he would have leisure to write his book. But one day when he was walking along a street he saw a child in danger of being run over. He hurried to the rescue, was knocked down and so badly hurt that there was no hope of his recovery.

When he came to die his great regret was that he had never written his book. But as he lay thinking about it, suddenly an angel appeared bearing a volume in his hand. And the angel said, “Here is thy book. It is a very noble book. Many shall read it and be the better for it” And when the man looked at the volume he saw that the title was “The Story of a Noble Life.” It was the record of all the kind things he had done, of all he had given up and borne for the sake of others, and it was a far finer book than any he could have written with pen or pencil.

So you see that sometimes it is a grander thing to give up your dreams than to realize them. But don't give them up for any unworthy reason, don't let them go too easily. Solomon became a worse man when he gave up his day-dreams, and many men and women have been like him.

And remember there is one dream we need never give up. It is the dream that we may be good servants of Jesus Christ, and live noble, true, unselfish lives. That is a dream we can all keep, and it is a dream that, God helping us, we can all realize.