Walter Mitty was a fictional James Thurber character whose waking hours were spent in fantasy about himself. One moment he would imagine himself a war hero, in the next moment a great man about town. In another moment he would be a world-famous surgeon, in another an inscrutable secret agent. Through his fantasies he was saved from a life of quiet blandness.

Ever have a Walter Mitty moment? Peter sure did. “Let’s go to Jerusalem and die with him.” “Far be it from you, Lord, that such things would happen to you. We won’t let it! We have two swords here!” “Sure, I’ll walk on water.” But for Peter, unlike Walter Mitty, reality trumped fantasy, for he fled at the first sign of danger and lost faith when faced with the storms of life. That often happens with a Walter Mitty moment.

Yet I wonder where we would be without our Walter Mitty moments. “Where there is no vision, the people perish”, says the proverb. Without the dream of a new, free land, the Pilgrims would have stayed in Holland. Without the dream of liberty and justice for all, many of our citizens would still be shackled in slavery. Without the dream that all should know God, Christianity would be a minor Jewish sect.

Without our dreams we would all be condemned to the life of Walter Mitty. For Walter Mitty’s fantasies never went beyond the tiny box of his brain. His fantasies never became dreams.

Have a vision. Grasp it in your mind. Transfer it to your hands and heart. Have your Walter Mitty moment and make it happen.