Jesus doesn't want you to 'follow your dreams'

The popular messages of our culture tell us that if we work hard, we can achieve anything. But this isn’t the truth of the Christian gospel, says Geoffrey Thomas. It’s much, much better than that

Last year, The Times columnist, James Marriott, wrote an article with a provocative title: “Do not follow your dreams. They will serve you ill.”

Yet, everywhere we look, people are being exhorted to become zealous followers of their own wild ambitions. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Anna Quindlem, told college graduates: “The only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying.”

Tennis superstar Serena Williams ‘preached’: “If they think your dreams are crazy, show them what your crazy dreams can do.”

Even sceptical Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker gave ‘a word of peace’ to the Glastonbury crowd thus: “If you want enough for something to happen - then it actually will.”