Archives: May 2009

Editorial...

Will any dream do?

OK, so everyone else in the world is going on and on and on about it, so we might as well too; Susan Boyle. The 47 year old singer who appeared on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ the other week has since featured in more newspaper headlines than Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and even a war in Iraq.

She doesn’t look like your average superstar and let’s face it, she probably isn’t. She’s a bit frumpy, funny looking and totally missing the mark on contemporary cool, but not only did she surprise little Ant & Dec with her crooning vocals, but in response to her rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ a whole auditorium, nation and most importantly, Simon Cowell, leapt up to give her a standing ovation. And why? Well according to all the debates, media hype and blog chat, she brings hope.

Now we know our hope is in Jesus, not Susan Boyle, but the world has latched onto something. In all honesty, she can sing, but she’s not the best vocalist ever and we love her partly because she does look a little bit strange. Our expectation when we see her walk out on stage is that she’s going to be totally naff and we’ll all have a laugh… but she does the opposite. She wins over all of us with her talent and innocence. We see beyond the 47 year old frumpy Scottish lady to find someone who has a dream and we love that. Instead of laughing we now want to see her succeed and accomplish her lifelong hope of becoming a famous singer. We’re so fickle, but hey, as long as we lap it up, they’ll keep making it.

Beyond all the hype, makeover suggestions and tearful TV viewers, what’s God saying about it all? We might think he’s too busy sorting out the economy or focusing on salvation to be watching Saturday night telly, but I reckon he’s getting at something that loads of us need to hear (hence the massive hype around Susan). He’s saying that sometimes the dreams he gives us don’t always work out as we expect. Like Susan we might have had a dream years ago, gone through massive disappointments, discouragements and just given up. We might have forgotten the stuff that really made us tick, figuring  the things that God spoke to us about, were just wrong or bad.
 
But look at Susan, actually look at Joseph (in the Old Testament). Just because we have a dream, even if it’s God given, things might turn out a little different than our (sometimes self indulgent) interpretations of what God has said.

Susan wanted to be a singer. Thirty years later, after making no real impact and being at a point when she should really throw in the towel, she’s ended up having an audience of millions through just one performance.

The lesson is partly about perseverance – sometimes we need to keep going even when it seems impossible. But also when we feel God does speak to us and give us dreams we need to give them back to him, follow him and put him, not those dreams first. Those dreams may never be fulfilled in the way we expect, but ultimately, Jesus is our dream, our hope and our purpose.

In the rest of the mag this month we finally finish our trek through the Bible with Frog and Amy Orr Ewing (who are coming to Soul Survivor and Momentum this summer), Mike has some words on old cars and an empty tomb and new writer (for us at least), Kate admits that she’s a control freak. There’s loads more too, so have fun reading and get in touch with suggestions, comments and ideas!

Happy May

Dan
editor@soulsurvivor.com