Читать книгу There is More: When the World Says You Can’t, God Says You Can - Brian Houston, Brian Houston - Страница 8

Seventeen. What did you dream about when you were seventeen? Did you dare to dream? Were you allowed to dream? Were you laughed at for your dreams? Perhaps family or peers were threatened by your dreams. Or are you the product of an environment where you were encouraged to think big and dream impossible dreams? And if you are not yet seventeen or are well beyond seventeen, what grand things do you dream about now?

I was a dreamer. You see, I came from a land that was then said to have three million people and seventy million sheep. That’s great if your life’s grand ambition is making woolen jumpers or Roquefort cheese, but it’s not necessarily a launching pad for dreaming of building anything with worldwide influence and impact. Interestingly, this small land in the Southern Ocean has produced (among many other fine endeavors) the first man to climb Mount Everest and the first man to split the atom. It is home to the famous landscape displayed in the splendor of the Lord of the Rings movies, as well as many world-renowned entertainers, actors, athletes, and businesspeople. Plus of course it boasts the world’s most successful and famed rugby team, the New Zealand All Blacks. So maybe, just maybe, humble beginnings are the perfect soil for a blossoming and fruitful life.

In the 1960s, my family lived in a state house, which was a government-owned, timber-lined dwelling that stood like a sullen soldier among all the other similar houses in Taita, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. It was a working-class suburb, with all the associated social problems, just outside Wellington.

Nothing in particular stood out about me as a child or teenager. I found it impossible to concentrate in school, and my long legs were more of a hindrance than a help when it came to the sporting field.

I have vivid memories of my journey home from Hutt Valley High School. I began my daily walk from the train station onto High Street before turning left past the Tocker Street Dairy, our local convenience store, where, if I had any change, I would stop to buy hokey-pokey ice cream (vanilla ice cream with small bits of honeycomb toffee throughout). Then I would veer right onto Reynolds Street, past Pearce Crescent, Molesworth Street, and Compton Crescent, before finally turning into Nash Street, and I would walk past three houses before arriving home at the corner of Nash Street and Taita Drive. And day after day, on that repetitious walk home, my young, shy, but adventurous mind used to dream and dream and dream. It was a dream that always seemed to follow a similar narrative.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to someday serve Jesus and preach the gospel. In fact, I cannot remember a time when that wasn’t what I dreamed of doing. I dreamed in the school classroom, I dreamed on that journey home, and I dreamed while sitting in church twice on a Sunday, every Sunday throughout my childhood.

It was then that I imagined speaking to big crowds or traveling the world, leading thousands of people to Jesus Christ and maybe one day building a great church. I would also wonder who my wife would be, what she would look like, where she was, and what she was doing at that very moment. And I dreamed that maybe I would meet her—that one person who would want to pursue this dream with me.

Fast-forward forty-plus years, and I have found myself on a much longer journey than that childhood walk home from the train station. It’s been this ongoing adventure called life, in which this small-town daydreamer has found himself living in the realization of those dreams and in the wonder of even bigger ones.