Over the last almost-thirty years as a priest I’ve had opportunity to talk with hundreds of people about a wide variety of topics in a wide variety of settings. But when those conversations have turned to how a person’s life is going, as they frequently do, there is perhaps one theme that occurs more frequently than all the rest:
The person I am talking to is not satisfied with his or her life.
Now in one sense, that’s just the nature of life in an imperfect world. None of us gets everything we want. But in another sense, the simple truth is that only a small percentage of us get to do what we really wanted to do with our lives.
This new sermon series, which will run for the next 5 weeks, is about taking steps towards making dreams a reality. It’s called Go Big or Go Home, and the idea isn’t that we’d do something ostentatious or grandiose. No, it’s simply that we’d make the most of what’s been given to us in the short time that is our lives. It’s that we’d dream big about what is possible in our marriages, our families, our friendships. It’s that we’d dream big about what is possible in our neighborhood, our school, our workplace, our church, our home.
And it’s that we’d take those dreams seriously enough to take steps to realize them. In the brief time we are on this planet, we’ll make the unique contribution that only we can make. The idea is that we will become more fulfilled, more focused on things that matter, and happier with life. Because even if our life is pretty good—maybe even pretty darn good—there are always things that need improvement, always areas of our lives and in the world that can use a little (or a lot) of help.
So let’s dive in, shall we?