In Acts 10 God gave Peter, one of the leaders in the church, a dream. That dream prepared him to go to a place (a gentile home!) and share the good news of Jesus with people he had previously thought did not belong as a part of God’s family. The whole experience led him to proclaim, “Truly I now understand that God shows no partiality!”

God’s dreams can be a powerful influence in our lives! Our nation continues to struggle with race relations, and in many ways the realization of the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. still seems a long way away. Racial tensions are high. Fear is very real for people of color. And for whites this fear can be hard to understand.

God gave another of his closest disciples – the apostle John – a dream as well. His dream was of a future in God’s kingdom which will include people of every race, people, and language. All are the same, because all have been washed in the same blood of Jesus and all have been clothed in his righteousness.

Can we, as God’s people here at Trinity, be inspired by God’s dream? We need to all as individuals examine our hearts and minds to root out any sin that might separate us. We need to recognize that we all have “blind spots” where we are clueless about the pressures others feel and how our own thoughts and actions may affect them. We need to recognize that racism is rooted in “privilege” – that we all start in different places as we seek to live out “the American dream.” We need as a church to break down any barriers that keep us from our worship gatherings looking like a “foretaste of the feast to come” in heaven. We need to dream God’s dream for our little part of His family. We need to bring a little of heaven into the present – MAKE NOW LOOK LIKE HEAVEN WILL LOOK.