Dreams Beget Challenges
A leader with big dreams is going to face great challenges.
And a leader who inspires others to dream great dreams is going to be surrounded by people who are facing great challenges. After all:
Dreamers have to fight to see their dreams come true.
While leading my church’s congregation through a building project several years ago, I began to experience chest pains. The gigantic project was time-, money- and energy-consuming. To determine the cause of my physical discomfort, I was scheduled for a battery of tests. One of these tests—a nuclear stress test of some sort to check on the condition of my heart—took place in a medical office building next door to the land we were preparing to build on. I use the phrase “preparing to build” because, though we were several years and several million dollars into this project, all that had actually occurred on site was some pre-construction preparation. An incredible amount of time, money and manpower had to be spent just to blast and remove the enormous rock formations hiding just underneath the surface of the ground.
We had been warned by our experts there would be some blasting necessary, but no one knew to what extent until the work got underway. Month after month, every workday was the same: dynamite drilled into place, jarring explosions, massive clouds of dust or muck filling the air, and rumbling bulldozers. In addition, more than 100 dump trucks were making their way into the property, being filled with rock, and revving their way back from where they came. Did I mention that this cost a lot of money, and every jolt and sound was a harsh reminder of this fact? All we had for our effort was an unsightly, chaotically disarranged hole in the ground which got larger by the day.
And did I mention I was having chest pains?
So here I am, walking on a treadmill in the medical office building next to this project, with electrodes hooked up all over my chest. As a frequent exerciser it took some time for my heart rate to elevate enough for the test to be effective, so the technician kept raising the incline and pace of the treadmill. He was starting to get annoyed with the lack of progress, and finally said, “Let's open this blind” and pointed to a window that I had been blankly staring at as I walked. Disoriented, I was oblivious to what this window faced. But when the tech pulled the cord and the blind opened up, I found myself staring at the unsightly, expensive hole in the ground next door. Our project. The technician quickly yelled, “Something is wrong! His heart rate just shot up. We have to stop this test and make sure he's okay.” Of course, at that point, I didn't need a doctor to diagnose my problem. That project I was staring at was a pain in my … chest.
This project represented a huge dream. I had inspired a whole lot of people to dream big with me. They had stepped out with me in radical faith and sacrificed significantly. We were all in. But at that point, I felt like I had just led us all into a big, murky—and did I mention expensive?—mess. As with most dreams I’ve had, I just hadn't realized how hard actualizing the dream would really be.
Through experiences like this, and many other high stress-inducing adventures, I have suffered enough dream-making chest pains to have some sense of what it costs to pursue something great.
I know if I have a worthy vision I will face resistance. It's like all the powers of this world and the dark world align themselves to stop dreamers and their dreams.
This is just the way things are in this present age. I get it.
But let's take this to another level: it's one thing for me to suffer through the inevitable and difficult challenges of dream making; it's another thing for me to witness the heartache of the people around me who I have inspired to dream, and helped to shape their dreams, and encouraged to go after their dreams. It's one thing for me to have a pain in my chest … it's another for me to know that I am, at least in part, the reason a whole lot of the people I lead have a proverbial pain in their chest as well.
Honestly, when I think about experiences like I had on that treadmill I wonder why I would ever want anyone else, especially the people I love and lead, to suffer through seasons like that.
But if I am hospitable to people and their dreams this is part of what I must know will happen. I will always be surrounded by people who are suffering to see their dreams come true.
So what do we do?
First of all, stop whining. (I wrote that to myself.) Now that the resistance and the painful part of dream making is acknowledged, it's time to get on with it.
Why? Because I want the people I lead to confidently and fearlessly face the challenges of achieving great things in their lives.