“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Acts 2:17

I’ve been told that I have the wisdom and leadership skills of Hannibal, the brute strength and loyalty of BA, the crazy humor and daring of Murdock, the imaginative resourcefulness and suave deliciousness of Face Man… and Amy’s eyes. Who told me that? …Um…

At eighteen I dreamed, and my dreams were like a good A-Team episode. I’d travel to a new place; encounter a beautiful woman who thought I was…delicious. I would discover an injustice being perpetrated by the Bad Dude’s place of business, a run down western bar.

I’d walk right into this place and, all cocky and clever, I’d look him straight in the eye and say…

JASON
(mocking southern accent)

It smells like ignorant wretch in here.

BAD DUDE
(incredulous)

This don’t involve you stranger. Piss off.

JASON
(calmly sarcastic)

I don’t think we’re gonna be friends.

(beat)

I’ll give you till noon tomorrow to clear outta town.

BAD DUDE
(furious)

Get em boys!

One of his thugs takes a swing at me. With ease, I slide away, and using his momentum against him, I help him exit through the plate glass window. Just then BA shows up and in good “Bad Attitude” fashion, knocks some heads together. Face Man, who has been sitting at the bar, rolls his eyes and proceeds to saunter over to the exit while trying not to spill the contents of his drink – but alas, some poor sap bumps into him, and Face is compelled to get involved.

It’s a real ruckus now. Just as I think we’ll finish the Bad Dude off he replaces fists with guns. We dive for cover as crazy Murdock pulls up in the Van. Hannibal gets out of the passenger side spraying led everywhere covering our retreat. Bullets wiz past as we make our way to the Van. I roll my eyes at Face while we wait for Murdock to get out and let BA drive, but its not scary, its humorous – BA always drives!

And I’m not scared; I’m invincible! You see, no one ever gets shot in the A-Team; well, except that one time when BA took some lead.

He got shot in the leg. And though it wasn’t necessarily life threatening, he did lose a lot of blood. And of course we couldn’t go to a hospital on account of Col Decker being hard on our tail. So Hannibal and Face rigged something up for a blood transfer between crazy old Murdoch and BA. Apparently their blood type matches.

Then of-course BA and Murdock became blood brothers and Murdock tried to convince BA that crazy was in his bloodline. And BA kept threatening Murdock but couldn’t get out of his wheel chair to make good on his threats. And Murdock kept pushing him around on the wheel chair asking if he could hear the voices yet…

Yeah, as a young man I dreamed in the language of an 80’s action TV series.

Life was going to be an exciting and sometimes dangerous adventure. And if I got shot along the way, I imagined that it would be a mere flesh wound- and not the Monty Python kind of “mere”.

And if I got captured, the bad guy would probably hold me in an auto mechanic shop, or something. That’s where I would build a vehicle out of duct tape (thanks MacGyver) and exhaust pipes. I would burst through the garage doors and run all the Bad Dude’s cars off the road. I would right the wrongs.

Then I would kiss the girl, say something cool about plans coming together, exhale cigar smoke, and drive off into the sunset. Yep, my vision of the future was epic and could be wrapped up in a pretty bow in about 43 minutes with TIVO.

As a young man, I would have told you I knew how to dream. Back then, dreaming was about as easy as breathing. The fact is, there was very little risk involved, which should have been a clue… but I was young.

Over the last twenty some years I’ve had some rather rude awakenings. Yeah, I’ve traveled to new places and I’ve confronted Bad Dudes. But that’s pretty much were the similarities to an episode of the A-Team end. You see, the bullets were real and they didn’t miss. I’ve been shot, many times – and it was no mere flesh wound either. I’ve also spent countless years stuck in the mechanic shop. And when I finally invented a new vehicle and escaped, it got run off the road and flipped a couple times while I was in it. In my particular story, I did get the beautiful girl, but I’ve had to apologize to her many times cause she’s been in the car with me.

I’m not as young as I once was. I’m beginning to understand that true dreaming is the most powerful thing on earth, in fact its the substance of heaven. True dreaming is the partnership with the goodness of God that pulls heaven to earth. True dreaming isn’t for the faint of heart, its a radical act of faith that empowers generations to live out the greater works miraculous life Jesus dreamed, revealed, and promised us. And these world transforming dreams, well, they are only available to old men dreamers. Why, because old men dreamers know that the bullets are real, getting shot is painful, and then you die…

Jason Clark is a writer, speaker and lead communicator at A Family Story Ministries. His mission is to encourage sons and daughters to grow sure in the love of an always-good heavenly Father. He and his wife, Karen, live in North Carolina with their three children.

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