Living the Dream

Many of you will have heard this expression. In our North American context, I understand it to refer to having reached the goals of having found a good spouse, perhaps also including reference to already beginning a family, having a job with a good income, earning enough to have your own home and car, with enough left over to take good vacations.

As a human who tries to follow Jesus of Nazareth as Lord in the Anabaptist way, I have to say that this is a saying that I do not really like. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I have a rather strong aversion to it and what it means, at least as I understand it. I have heard it used in Anabaptist circles though. I have to admit to that there was a time in my life when I had similar sentiment to what the statement expresses too. I had successfully established myself in a career that I strongly believed God had called me too. We already had a small home that we had put considerable expense into in terms of improving it. We even also already had two cars. We were debt-free, and I was only 33. However, when I really felt that, in terms of this "living the dream" I had arrived was when our family of four (myself, wife, son and daughter) moved into a well-built bungalow with attached garage on a fenced corner lot in a good residential area of a small Canadian Prairie city in 1985. The home, built in 1961, had molded plaster ceilings, hardwood floors and pink sandstone around the main entrance and street-facing picture window, as we learned to call these in the 50s.

There were times when we considered buying a lot in that city, and even when we visited my parents in the Okanagon area of British Columbia, and building a house to suit our dreams. At one point, we did even briefly consider buying a lot on a lake an hour’s drive from home and building a cottage. Earlier, we could have purchased a lot with a home on it in a nearby National Park, but we did not follow through with that. 

Ultimately, in our Christian pilgrimage, we decided against these things because our understanding of being a Christian called us to turn down some of these possibilities. We were already living in a situation where we had more than enough. We could afford to take good vacations. Sometimes, I even felt a little guilty about that, particularly when we took the step of investing in a timeshare. We did enjoy the 25 years of the occasions that allowed us. However, one has to draw the line somewhere.

Now, we have downsized to a nice but not luxurious condominium. We got rid of the timeshare. We have long disposed of our second car. In fact, we often consider going automobile free. Indeed, even though we could have afforded it, and there were some who probably expected that someone in my station would drive a more luxurious car, we have never moved in that direction. Our current 13-yr old Honda Accord [2^ndlongest we’ve had a car] is the ‘fanciest’ car we’ve ever had. By that I mean the first one with power windows and door locks, trunk release; I won’t mention the 2 ‘extras’ I afforded myself - steel wheels and sunroof – still cloth seats.

These are the choices my wife and I have made. We fully recognize they still don’t come close to the self-denial our Lord disciplined himself to in his short life on earth. Jesus said of himself, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58) The Apostle Paul wrote: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8). We know our choices represent more of a limitation than what some live under. But compared to what Jesus gave up and suffered, it is nothing. I say that not in pride but simply as an observation consistent with the fact that we can never earn God’s approval, nor can we tell others how to live. We each make our own decisions before our Creator, Lord and Saviour. We continue to work at doing justice, loving kindness, being simpler and humbler, which is what our God asks of us (Micah 6:8). However, ultimately, we know that all we are, all we have and all we will be comes through the grace of God, it is a gift, as the Apostle Paul again so succinctly put it: “…by grace [we] have been saved through faith, and this is not [our] own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no man may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) And, on this Thanksgiving Day in 2018, we are very grateful for all we have.