God is The Only “Dream” Worth Following

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Today’s reading: Psalm 37:1-11

For many years, this oft-quoted line from David Henry Thoreau was at the core of my life’s motivation: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”

Today, I follow this glorious advice instead:

“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.” (Verse 5)

But, in pondering that line from today’s reading, I felt moved this morning to take another look at that quotation from Thoreau.

I discovered something startling.

Several generations of motivational speakers (some even pastors) have committed an injustice against my hero! By the sin of omission, they have dramatically altered his  meaning!

I suppose I too had never before bothered to pay close attention to his words in their context (which is the famous book Walden), but when I looked them up today, I smiled at the next, much less famous, sentence.

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”

Thoreau and The Bible are not at odds after all!

His first line simply assumes that his reader’s dream is the same as his own — to follow God’s course, not man’s. And the direction of that dream, of course, is to simplify one’s life, to rid it of all that The World values most.

Because, indeed, to follow God, all one needs is God.

But that message is not the path to riches on the seminar and sermon circuit.  Only a foolish motivational speaker would remind his audience that Thoreau might actually have caused himself some (unreported) discomfort by his dream. (It doesn’t seem that he ate very much out there in the woods, afterall. And I’m sure his little cabin was colder and more pest-ridden that most modern dreamers would like.)  Only a comedian would propose this lifestyle as the “real” American Dream.

As it starts to dawn on me just how vulnerable I once was to The World’s misquotation of Thoreau, I am amazed that I ever found my way to The Bible. But for the grace of God, my life would actually be the flounder that my friends who have expressed such concern over my “career” must think it is. (I chuckle at what these friends would have thought of Thoreau’s decision to shun all wordly pleasures and head out to his pond.)

Thanks be to God for being the only dream worth following.