The Stuff Dreams are Made of

So the other day I had a saying that kept running through my head it was “This is the stuff that dreams are made of”.  If you are a fan of old movies you may recognize this as a quote from Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, but what many don’t know is that in the movie this was actually a misquote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest; which actually says “This is the stuff that dreams are made on”. So anyway let’s get back to what was going through my head; “This is the stuff that dreams are made of”. This was followed by “your dreams grow out of the desires of your heart.” So then I think “what’s the difference between a dream and a desire, and just what is stuff?”

So… just what is stuff I guess the best way to describe stuff is that it is in fact stuff. It’s matter; it’s tangible, there is good stuff and can be bad stuff. This is what Merriam Webster Dictionary says about stuff: 1) materials, supplies, or equipment used in various activities 2) material to be manufactured, wrought, or used in construction 3) fundamental material : substance. Ultimately if it wasn’t for GOD there wouldn’t even be any stuff.  In Genesis it says that He spoke and created stuff where there was no stuff, so all stuff is GOD’s stuff.  And all of the stuff that He spoke into existence 7k-10k years ago is the basis of all the stuff we have today. When He created us He used His stuff and made us in His image, then He breathed life into His stuff.  Part of Him making us in His image is that He made us to be creative, so we have the ability to make stuff too.  There is a difference though, He gave us the ability to make stuff out of the stuff that He created, but we are not able to make stuff out of no stuff. This is one of the things that separates us from GOD. When we come together and create in unity we are more powerful and stuff has greater potential. And because of His breath in us when we speak our words have the power to affect stuff, to shape stuff, move stuff, build stuff up or tear stuff down.

Matthew 17:20 (NLT) “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”

Next is dreams, dreams are important many times GOD will speak to us in our dreams, in his first great oration Paul reminded the people that the prophet Joel said that “old men would dream dreams”.  Sometimes dreams can be weird and make you think twice about whatever you ate the night before.  But these aren’t the dreams I’m talking about here.  I am talking about our waking dreams, the things that consume our thoughts; they are our goals, the things we want to achieve in life.  It could be where we want to live, what our careers will be, a place to go visit, a ministry idea, a relationship. Good ol’ Merriam Webster says: Dream = a: a strongly desired goal or purpose b: something that fully satisfies a wish. Many think that dreams come from the head, I disagree I say they come from the heart. Your heart contains the well spring of life that feeds your dreams and gives them life and the fulfillment brings joy. When dreams are realized and accomplished we are able to use that as a milestone or marker in our lives that we can look back upon as a testimony to how far we have come and of the things that GOD has done on our lives.  It also lends to the heritage of those that come behind us, our children and grandchildren and the generations to come.

Psalm 37:4 (NASB) Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Finally we get to desires; you may say dreams and desires are the same thing but I don’t believe so. Believe it or not I looked up desire on the Merriam Webster website too (do you see a pattern here?) Desire = 1) conscious impulse toward something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment 2) Longing, Craving.  To me desires speak of passion and the development of a fierceness that drives you to attain your dreams, especially the dreams that come from the deep places of your heart. Your desires are stirred up in your heart, we then realize these desires and in their realization stuff starts being formed this stuff is the basis for our dreams.  In our creative abilities we take this stuff that is being formed and we speak life into it, we declare its existence and its outcome.  Our desires give us the passion to speak the stuff of our dreams into something that we can obtain.

Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158