When you ask most five-year-olds what they want to be when they grow up, you know the standard answers:

• A fireman
• A doctor
• A Ballerina
• Lebron James

However, when one of our oldest daughters (now 15, who, by the way, has given me permission to tell this story) was little, she answered this question consistently the very same way for years until she was at least 5 or 6:

“When I grow up, I want to be Rudolph.”

Yes, my sweet little girl wanted to one day somehow transform into a flying reindeer with a glowing red nose.

When you think about it, it’s really not a bad gig if you can get it. You are employed by the jolliest man alive, travel the world and from what I gather, you only work one day a year.  Not bad, right?

There are many great things about kids, but one of the best might just be their ability to dream of impossible things.

I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the things I love the most about looking toward a new year.   For you, this past year may have been great, but the New Year causes us to wonder if it could be even better. For others of you, this last year may have been excruciatingly hard. I have good friends for whom this is true. But at the end of a very hard year, the New Year gives those of us in this camp the chance to say with great hope, “next year will be better.”

I’ve spent a bit of time in the book of Joshua this week. Our God is a God of impossible things. He is the God of hope. What are the impossible dreams you are trusting Him for in 2016?

And if one them involves trying to land the reindeer job, I’m going to go ahead and warn you now that you’ll have some pretty stiff competition.

Merry Christmas and Happy Impossible New Year.