The Indians of the American plains occupied a land of tremendous breadth, a land of endless vistas of windswept grass and rock strewn hills, a land in which the sun seemed to never set, and the moon shone without shadow, crystal clear, a land, it seemed, of limitless possibilities, a land, it seemed, that would always be unbroken, unhindered, expansive and free forever.
     Today, of course, only a very few of those prairies remain, assorted pockets of wildness spread around the sprawling midsection of the country, their existence mute and greatly diminished evidence of the glory that had once been.
     But it is the idea of endlessness on which we want to focus here, the notion that a land can be without end, can be without start or stop, a seemingly bottomless fount of experience, ripe for any who dare partake of its wonders.
     This is a land, we might say, that is infinite.  Why?  It has been made by an infinitude God.  And because it has been created by an infinite God, this land, indeed, all land on this planet, is grounded in the purposes of infinitude.  The planet's lands are lands of dream, lands in which we, creatures created and grounded in an endlessness of thought and intentionality, can dream.  We dream of today, we dream of tomorrow, we dream of next year, we dream of many years beyond:  we always imagine what we would like, one day, to see, to envision what, at the present moment, we do not.  Though one day these lands will be no more, the dreams they bequeath will last forever.
     People who view God as rigid and restrictive therefore miss the point.  God is anything but such things.  An infinite God creates infinite possibility, the incredible range of possibility on which we, trusting in the constancy and integrity of God, can, with joy and vision, build our lives.
     So take heart:  believe, then live in the compass of endless dream and forever possibility.  The prairies, and the God who made them, are before you.