Beyond the Dream

Dreams. I had one once. Not a literal dream, you know, where you are sleeping and then . . . BAM! For me, it was more like a mental picture of what I wanted to do with my life. It was still a dream, though I was awake each time I envisioned it. “What was your dream,” you ask? Well, you might find it a bit far-fetched, especially after you hear about my life journey from high school to college, but I will tell you anyway. I dreamed about playing in the NBA. Yes, I had a hoops dream. Where I come from, it wasn’t like my dream was unique. A lot of guys I knew in junior high and high school had the same aspiration, but they never made it. But I just knew my life would turn out different, that I would actually make it to the big stage. And it didn’t matter to me that I was only 5' 3" at the time (I’m 5' 5" now, so it’s not like I grew a whole lot). Shoot, I thought that if Muggsy Bogues (5' 3"), and Spud Webb (5' 7") could make it, so could I.
Furthermore, it didn’t matter to me that I tried out for the team during my freshman and sophomore years but wasn’t chosen. I knew I was just as good as those who were picked, those star players who never had to try out and were simply transferred from one sport to the next. And, no, it may sound like it, but I am not bitter. The reason I knew I was just as good was because I used to play against some of them during our lunch break and I would hold my own.
What about my junior and senior years? I don’t exactly recall what happened my junior year. I did want to try out, but I think I either forgot to bring my report card or missed the tryouts altogether. But it definitely wasn’t because I couldn’t play. And my senior year . . . well, quite honestly, I had given up by then, at least in terms of playing high school ball.
But I still had hope. I still had a dream to play in the NBA. So off to college I went. I was excited because I knew that if I worked hard on my game, it was possible for me to be a walk-on. But there was one huge problem. The university where I enrolled—the only university that I had applied to, by the way—cancelled its basketball program right before I arrived. The other part of this story is (and don’t judge me when I tell you this) when I read the university’s catalogue and perused their website, I thought they still had the program because I didn’t know what the word intramurals meant. I just saw basketball and zoned everything else out. So, yes, I applied to a school that didn’t even have a basketball program.
When I finally realized my university didn’t have a team, I knew my basketball dream was not going to be fulfilled. God showed me, through circumstances, that it was not what He had for me. It was a dream all right, but it was my dream, not His dream. And so I learned a valuable lesson early on in my life as a believer: God is not obligated to fulfill my dreams, but He will fulfill His dreams for my life.