Washing Dishes

I do some of my best thinking while washing the dishes.

I didn’t know this little tidbit about myself until I got a place without a dishwasher. At first I was appalled. You mean I have to take the time to wash everything by hand and touch all that left over food!?! I have a religion against touching food leftover on a plate for no other reason beyond the fact that it’s just gross. In other words I’m very... particular over whose dishes I wash and in what way I wash them. You would think that by now I would just carry disposable gloves around with me, but I don’t like gloves either. You try to do dishes with gloves and you get your hands in too deep and the dirty water ends up inside your gloves and on, and on it goes. The morel of that story; I’m a little neurotic and tend to get off topic.

While doing my dishes this afternoon I was contemplating greatness and dreams. I believe that dreaming is a big part of life on this earth. Not just because I’m a day dreamer, although that’s probably a factor, but because I feel that dreaming is one of the ways that God speaks to us. Not the dreams we have when we sleep necessarily, but the dreams that come to us while we’re awake and our minds go blank. The thoughts that pop out of nowhere while you’re walking to your car, down the street, picking up the mail, making a meal, or doing the dishes. The bible says to ‘be still and know that I am God’. My first take on this verse is to shut yourself away from the world, and sit, and listen. No distractions; no music, no books, just you and God. That can be a very powerful situation to place yourself in. Unfortunately I’m horrible at it. I seem to have the attention span of a gold fish; 3 seconds and I get distracted. I often feel as if I’m not trying hard enough to be close to God because I can’t seem to find the time to shut myself off from the world every day. But one day I realized that Psalm # wasn’t talking about only the stillness of your body and your world, but also the stillness of your mind. I had to look up this verse again; be still and know that I am God. Be Still. We can let our minds be still while continuing to let our bodies move. So I asked myself, when do we ever let our minds be still? For me, it’s when I wash my dishes. I stand at my sink with my hands in the suds filled water, looking out my window, and just... let go. I don’t plan. I don’t think about what needs to be done today, or tomorrow, or next year. There are no thoughts on the bills, the messy house, and the dirty laundry. It’s just me and my dishes. It is in those moments that I ask God what he would like to share with and I let my mind go blank. Sometimes I dream of the future, sometimes I remember the past, others I think up stories that could never be reality. Most times I pray; in happiness, loneliness, anger, and fear. I pray in trust, faith, disbelief, and doubt. Today my mind went to dreams of greatness, and Harry Potter. I have big dreams for my life, not in the sense they are huge to accomplish but in that they hold a lot of meaning for me. These dreams of mine take a certain amount of pushing and doing, and a certain amount of trusting in God and his doing. If I were to make these dreams happen on my own, they wouldn’t end up being as great as they could be or make me feel as fulfilled as they are supposed to. Do you want a job? You can go and get any job you strive for, but if you listen to God’s direction he can lead you to the job you will be most content with. Do you want to get married? You can go and find anyone you want and get married, but if you listen to God’s leading he will show you who he made to be your Ezer Kenegdo. Do you want to travel? Hop on a plane and go! But if you listen to where and when God would like to have you go, it will be a truly purposeful trip. You can make your dreams happen, but if you wait on God for your dreams and listen to his direction then there will truly be greatness in your dreams. I believe that in your dreams is the greatness God has intended for you. So dream big, He does. Yes, it may seem hopeless at times and like you will never see your dreams to reality. But when you are open to God’s plan for you, your dreams are his dreams, and his dreams come true. As a friend of mine once said; God is faithful, He will see it through. This is a promise. If God has given you a dream or burden that is in accordance to His will on your life, He will see it through. All you need to do is pray and wait. We are on God’s schedule not our own. When we pray and wait God will equip us for what he has asked us to do. What he has asked us to dream. So dream big and take hope. God is dreaming for you.

Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter...

God expects great things from you. He shows you this greatness through your dreams, through your mindless wandering. Never forget to come back to God with your dreaming. Our dreams on our own are just that, dreams. Things we would like to become reality, but will probably never happen. But with God our dreams are the greatness that he intends for us; the greatness that he will see through to reality in our lives.