I’m learning to hold onto my dreams loosely. In the past, unraveled dreams would make me question everything— especially my judgment.

Clearly, I must have misunderstood God’s direction because He wouldn’t lead me to a dead-end. That’s not the way a loving father treats his children, misdirecting them like that.

But I was sure He was there—holding my hand, leading me to this point. Was my experience of His presence all in my head? It just doesn’t add up.

After turning it over in my head many times, I wonder if there’s another explanation.

Could it be I’m placing too much weight on the outcome? Maybe He isn’t misleading me after all. Maybe the outcome just doesn’t really matter.

What if the source of inspiration—a vision and hope for the future— completes its full purpose by simply inspiring us. By causing us to look for something better, hope for something bigger, believe in something greater than what we can presently see. What if that experience is the full gift and not a guarantee of the future?

What if the inspiration and the outcome don’t have to match at all? What if our cause for hope doesn’t have to take form in our future for it to be effective? If it isn’t realized as we dreamed it, we need not lose heart because maybe that wasn’t the purpose of the dream after all.

What if the purpose of the dream is just that—to experience the dream in all its fullness while it lasts and while it has its place in our lives. That’s a beautiful thing. And when the dream ends, so enters another one. That is, if we’ve allowed the previous dream to move on, making room for the new one.

Isn’t that life? A collection of dreams and hopes that come and go? Something fluid. Something ever-changing.

What a concept… My dreams have value even when they don’t come true. They are not empty or void of beauty if they don’t materialize. They are full and rich and great still; strong and beautiful just as they were when I first dreamed them.

If they are dreamed openly, fully and freely without grasping, their dignity is not lost in their passing. That can still remain though the dream moves on. The sweetness and richness of its impact can still remain.

The stretching and opening of my heart can still be seen and felt as I move onto other dreams. This is the beautiful aftereffect of a dream fully dreamed. Maybe that’s the purpose—to make our hearts and minds bigger than they were before we allowed ourselves to dream in the first place.

Dreams fully dreamed should change us. They should increase our capacity to dream even bigger in the future, to love even deeper than we could before.

And isn’t that what I’m really speaking of? Love—dreams of love that remain unfulfilled, fleeting loves that make our hearts swell before they quickly pass through our hands. Those dreams borne of love should change us. They should shape us.

Hope’s measure of success is not an aligned outcome but a changed person.

Did that hope shape and refine me while it existed in my heart, while I held it in my hands? Am I different because of it? Am I better for it? If so, it’s accomplished its intended purpose.

Business plans and personal goals are measured by outcomes but hope is something entirely different and cannot be measured the same way. To measure it the same way is to take something transcendent, bring it down to earth (an unnatural place for it to exist), and measure it in shallow, worldly terms.

A deeper measurement is required for something so profound—a measurement of the heart and soul and its growth regardless of the outcomes.

We hope in worldly terms because we are worldly beings, but hope exists above and beyond these worldly terms. Hope exists above our circumstances. Our world is limited but hope is free from all limitations.

Hope is always good if practiced properly.

Sometimes we call it regrettable when our specific hope doesn’t translate into reality. We say it would’ve been better to not have hoped or dreamed at all. But that’s a misuse of hope.

Hope coupled with a sense of freedom and detachment from the outcome is the way hope ought to be treated. Living our hope with a truly open heart allows it to take its rightful place above our circumstances and beyond our specific (and limited) dreams, submitting the details to someone greater and wiser than ourselves.