WHEN DREAMS DIE

Genesis 11:31-32 (NLT), Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot (his son Haran's child) and left Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But they stopped instead at the village of Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still at Haran.


He doesn’t know why… He can’t quite explain it… But every morning He wakes up and there’s this little gnaw in his gut. It comes and goes throughout the day, but it never really leaves…

He’s married to a beautiful girl. He’s blessed with a great kid. But every morning he gets up and goes off to a job where he just sort of blends in... Goes through the motions… Collects a pay check, then goes home and lives with this inner ache that says, “You were made for more than this…”

Then one day he’s involved in a deadly train crash. He’s the sole survivor… Doesn’t have a scratch on him… it’s not really a surprise, because things like this have happened to David before… He just won’t admit it… He has learned how to ignore it…

Then he receives a note from Elijah Price, brilliantly played by Samuel L. Jackson. David (Bruce Willis) confides in Elijah that every morning he wakes up with this little bit of sadness in his soul. He had hoped that Elijah might help him understand why.

Eventually, Elijah looks at David and says, “…that little bit of sadness in the morning you spoke of. I think I know what that is. Perhaps you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing…”


I wonder if Terah felt the same sense of sadness? I wonder if he woke up in the morning with an inner ache in his soul that seemed to say, “You were meant for more…”?

So one morning, Terah packed his bags… He gathered a few members of his family: Abram, Sarai and his nephew Lot. He has a dream. He’s going to pursue it. He is leaving everything he knows and he’s moving to Canaan.

But something happens. He makes it to Haran and “settles there.” The Bible says, “Terah lived for 205 years and died while still at Haran.” What a sentence! Read it again slowly. Don’t miss what it says. “Terah lived for 205 years and died while still at Haran.”

He “…died while still in Haran…” But I think something in his soul died, a long time before he died. Somehow in Haran he learned to live with the ache… Somehow he was able to tolerate the sadness. Somehow he was able to ignore the music pounding in his head and the dream beating in his chest… So, the Bible says, He “died while still in Haran.”

Where are you right now? Are you still hanging out in Ur? Maybe you left Ur and started towards Canaan, but somewhere along the way you took a detour.

All of us live with the tension of two voices. One voice tells us that we are irrelevant and insignificant – that there’s nothing special or extraordinary about our lives. But there’s another voice. It’s much more quite. It usually speaks only if you slow down long enough to listen. This voice tells us that underneath the ordinary, mundane and average trappings of our commonplace life, there is something extraordinary, heroic and noble just waiting to be unleashed.

At one point in the movie Unbreakable, Elijah looks at David’s wife and says this: “These are mediocre times, Mrs. Dunn. People are starting to lose hope. It’s hard for many to believe there are extraordinary things inside themselves as well as others…”

He’s right. Somehow it happened to Terah. He left Ur of the Chaldeans with a dream. He took a detour in Haran and he died there before ever making it to Canaan. He died before he ever got to live his dream.

What about you? Do you wake up in the morning with this little inner ache in your soul? Is there some dream that at some point in life you decided to set on the shelf? Have you settled for life in Haran when you know you were meant to live in Canaan?

Sometimes we settle for Haran because we’re afraid. We’re afraid we might fail. We’re afraid of what the journey might require. We’re afraid of what lies around the next corner.

Sometimes we settle for Haran because of personal comfort. Hey, we may not be living the dream, but at least we can pay the bills.

Sometimes we settle for Haran because we learn to ignore the voice that says, “You were made for more…”

Whatever you do, don’t die in Haran!

TODAY! Yeah, right now, take one step towards your dream.

Pick up the phone. Pack your bags. Lean into your giftedness. Listen to the voice of the Spirit. Take a leap of faith. Maybe that sense of sadness you feel each morning is there because “…you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”


Worth Checking Out:

Unbreakable, Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson

Meant To Live, Switchfoot from the CD, The Beautiful Letdown