The Real Mike Griffin

I once said to someone whose dreams needed to be lifted, “remember Monday!” Monday was the last sign up day for that semester of college. Every time I saw her, I smiled and said, “remember Monday.” Like an old drag race commercial that said “Sundayyyy,” I said, “Mondayyyy.” She responded and entered classes. A little encouragement, a little care from someone, a little stoking of the fires of hope and a new beginning.

We must all make a beginning sometimes and afterwards we have we need to continue to feed the fire and keep it burning. Sometimes we let our fires die down and need a little stirring or stoking to get them started again. Sometimes, we have to say it to ourselves, “Remember Monday!” People around us come to help us live in reality, often they tell us we can’t. Voices rise up inside us of things that say no, can’t, impossible. If we hear that long enough we no longer need to hear it from them, because we begin to tell ourselves. We begin to push our dreams and desires from our concousness. But, we must always remember Monday. We cannot rely on anyones opinions to form our dreams. We cannot rely on anyone to stoke our dreams and hopes, our fires, our passion but ourselves. The world always seems to try to tear the dreams and hopes down — to put out the fires. We can let that happen and fall into complacency, into a dull dream, or we can always and forever “remember Monday.” Falling into complacency. Being somewhat comfortable just now. It is slow death. Often we avoid doing things because we are concerned that, ” if it fails we will loose everything.” We look so long and hard at the consequence of failure that we do not move at all. We stay in the place we are. We fail to realize that with that attitude over time, “we will loose everything!” As we see our lives draining away day by day, the place we are seeming more and more mundane our fires grow cold; in our hearts we become desperate and look to find a way out but the alternative is worse than what we have.
On Monday, the week is new. Why do people dread the fresh start that comes when Monday breaks again? Monday should always be a new hope and a new beginning. What our response to Monday or anything else in life is, is always up to us. Most people just want to roll over and go back to sleep on Monday morning. Some people so dread Monday that on Monday morning as they face the life they hate they become sick. Monday morning is the peak time for heart attacks. When dreams should be alive and excitement in the air — people faint over things, mostly little things, that seem to have grown so large and so pervasive that all else is blocked from their view. Sometimes things will happen that makes a situation even more hopeless than it was. 
 Life is an adventure. We need always to know that if we face it with courage, wonder, faith, and love, that the hero, us, will win. Instead of choking at life’s free throw line, while at bat, as we go for the gold, or whatever analogy works for you, we need to relax, breathe in fire and confidence. We need to stoke our own fires within.
When we have a dream we must keep it alive! There is a line from an Edgar Guest poem, “Dream great dreams and say, God Can.” You may think that your dreams and God’s are different, but you are wrong.

(Jer 29:11-13 NIV) For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. {12} Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. {13} You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.