When I was a young boy, my parents gave me a chemistry set for Christmas. I can still conjure up the odors of the early sulfur-containing stink bombs I prepared. At that time, I began to have the dream of becoming a chemist. After high school, I went to college for ten years of chemistry classes and research, and then worked in prestigious laboratories of major corporations in Michigan and New Jersey where I developed a name for myself in my field. My dream of being a chemist was coming along well.

In 1987, my dream was interrupted when I was laid off for a year during a corporate downsizing. Then I came to Oklahoma where the same thing happened in 1994 and I was early retired.

God had a new dream for me, but it took me awhile to figure out what it was. God was calling me to be a deacon in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Eventually I said "yes," then the Church said "yes," and I was ordained in 1999 to a new dream beyond my wildest imagination.

In today's gospel reading, Peter, James, and John also had an initial dream different from God's dream. Their initial dream was that Jesus was a warrior Messiah who would free them from the Romans. To prepare the disciples for God's dream, Jesus took them up the mountain to experience his transfiguration. This was a sneak preview of Jesus' future glory so as to strengthen this inner circle of disciples in advance for his unthinkable suffering and death. Then, Jesus told Peter, James, and John to tell no one about his transfiguration until after his resurrection, because the disciples could not yet understand what "rising from the dead" meant.

In order to enjoy the incredible blessings that God has in store for each one of us, we too must be willing to relinquish our own dreams for the future.

Our dreams are not necessarily selfish. Yet it sometimes happens that obstacles are thrown in our path preventing us from following our dreams. Illness, disability, or lay off prevent us from being of service to others; accidents alter the circumstances of our lives; we may discover we have been misled by another. In all of this, we are forced to relinquish our cherished dreams for the future.

God does not call us out of our dreams into a vacuum. If we are asked to relinquish a possible future, it is only to be offered another possible future. Our aspirations may me noble, but the possibilities that God offers us will outstrip them in excellence.

Are we able to relinquish our hold on what we believe will be our future in order to receive a future that is not ours to control, a future beyond our imagination?

Those preparing for baptism at Easter Vigil will soon be asked to do just this. And for those of us already joined to Christ, we will be asked to recommit ourselves to this transformative experience.

God's future in Christ is open to us, but we must accept it in faith even when we do not fully understand what it means. I am still plumbing the depths of what it means to be a deacon, a servant. As my family says, "God's not done with Dad, yet."

We will only find God's dream for us by actively seeking him. I can't help thinking back to the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time when Jesus told his first two disciples who wondered about him, "Come and you will see."

God never stops issuing each of us an invitation "to come and see." How will we respond? What new dream does God have planned for us that is beyond our richest imagination?