Tim Clark’s Blog

A couple of weeks ago my wife and kids and I took a vacation to visit family in Oregon. Our California kids kept asking if it would snow for Christmas; we told them the forecast didn’t look good, but they could pray. December 25th didn’t have snow, but the 28th—well that was a different story.

All I can say is: ‘freak snow storm’. Though driving back from Portland to Newberg took 3 hours (it usually takes 40 minutes), it was finally worth it when my kids dashed out of the minivan, threw on some gloves, and jumped wholeheartedly into joyful play in the cold white stuff. It was perfect snow, too: not soggy-wet but also not so dry that you couldn’t form and hold shapes. And enough stuck to the ground that we could play as long as we wanted!

So, the family built a snowman. Not just any snowman, but in typical Clark artistic fashion (disclaimer: the Clark kids are artistic, not the dad) this one had shoulders, a body and a face that made it look more like a Michelangelo masterpiece than a fake Frosty. It was a proud moment, and we all went to bed exhausted but satisfied with a job well done.

But, of course, it was Oregon, and the unexpected snowstorm was quickly followed by a very-expected warm rain. When the kids went out the next morning to visit our guy, my wife and I realized we’d have to explain something about snowmen; they are fun while they last, but they don’t usually last very long at all. And when they are gone, you pick up the carrot and the coal and the hat, and you appreciate the memory of building it.

Yes, snowmen die. So do a lot of other things. Living beings, of course, die, and that can be very sad. Death comes to that which is intangible as well: Visions, hopes, dreams, passions—each of those has the potential to die.

Of course, some dreams do come true and it is appropriate to pursue a God-given vision. We like to celebrate people who see their visions realized—we all love a good underdog story! But for every dream that comes true, there are many that die. Nobody likes to admit that, but it’s a fact of life.

It would be easy if we knew which dreams were destined for reality, because then we’d only pursue those visions we knew would be accomplished. But it doesn’t work that way. We can’t always know which dreams will materialize, so we do our best and we joyfully pour ourselves into bringing a dream to life, and in the end we trust God to bring about the dreams birthed by Him and to hold back the ones that are not.

And often it’s not the outcome that matters as much as the process we embrace. God is the Lord of the outcome; we are responsible to engage the process well. Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps”. I think it’s essential to dream and important to plan, but it’s also vital to understand that God really does know what is best.

The wise man Theodore Geisel  (a.k.a. Doctor Seuss) once said, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Sometimes the Lord blesses us with great experiences that in the end don’t turn out the way we think they ought to. We should learn to joyfully embrace those moments as part of the process He is using to get us not to the fulfillment of our dream for our lives, but to the fulfillment of His dream for us.

No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, never so much as imagined anything quite like it—what God has arranged for those who love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)