The easiest thing for me to do is wake up from a dream and just plop it into reality via a piece of paper. The harder thing is to make sense of it and make application without giving someone the beefburgers (this is my term of endearment when talking about calmly freaking out). When I dream, as I have over the years, it doesn't lead me to a “maybe” prophesy of an event in the future. The dreams the Lord has allowed me to remember fall more in line with images that have me focus on the Word of God that He has been weaving into my life. I had already gone through the task of writing out this week's thoughts at 4:00 AM and all of a sudden I was overcome with sleep. I actually wandered back to bed (very much against my “get it done” nature). Falling back to sleep I found myself immediately in a dream:
I was on my way out of a church service and actually ran into an awesome Christian leader whom I hadn't seen for years.
(Background)I was blessed to be under his ministry during my college years. His vision, his example, his heart, and his preaching set my initial direction for the future. But as I moved into my future of service to the King, rumors of his demise kept popping in from different cruel directions at the most inopportune times. The rumors broke my heart before God. The rumors, through the grace of God, actually gave me protective walls to stay within. I actually carried none of the rumors further than my heart , but if I did share, it was in an effort to have someone pray with me for this fallen servant. I felt at times like the Jonathan of old just wanting to reach out and let this fallen servant know … God does not set his servants on the shelf, He does not cast them away, He does not embarrass them publicly, He has not been embarrassed by them … His grace already experienced the fall and His love remains true through it all.
In the dream I first saw this Servant from a perspective where he was turned away from me, but when he turned to me it was like we had know each other for years (but in the dream I was seeing him as taller but as young as he was in the past). We embraced with promises to keep on praying for each other throughout the years, and he turned to walk away.
This is where reality shifted to allegory. Where would he go and where did he abide? A “dream cam” (this is a device I find in my dreams to capture an event without the embarrassment of actually being there) followed his path to the top of a twin tower apartment complex that was divided by a zig-zag framework of an open stairway. This precarious stairway was the only way to access the single piled apartments in both of these towers. The only rest for the climber would be through the door of an apartment.
I found myself immediately at his apartment door or what I was assuming to be the door to his apartment. It was the very top single apartment dwelling at the very top of the right tower. So, I opened the door out of curiosity without so much as a knock and stepped right in. The décor of the room which I stepped into was comfortable and almost too familiar. I never had a chance to fully memorize my surroundings when all of a sudden I was flooded with all kinds of swirling emotions. Fear, joy, shame, loneliness, sorrow, glee, embarrassment, pride, power, abandonment, betrayal, welcome, horror, travesty, solitude, love, hate, anger, success, failure, confusion… but overwhelmingly, I felt I had no right to be there. I felt he was there somewhere, this was his sanctuary, and I was invading his privacy; so quickly but quietly I backed out of his home.
As I tried to navigate the descent between the two towers, I realized that some of the steps were strategically loosened in order to cause a fall. The stairs had been pryed loose, almost like someone was trying to orchestrate the daily fall of this man in hopes that he would be taken in his own climb or descent. With this knowledge I was able to get to the bottom but not completely without the fear of my own demise. At the bottom I realized the immense grace that would be needed daily to safely climb from and to this life. It was even more important for my heart to realize the importance of praying for this man. I wanted to pray.
NOW, Awake from my dream … I began praying … straightened the room I was in … I kept on praying … pulled on some clothes for the day … continued to pray … grabbed breakfast, carried it downstairs, and set it beside my keyboard … prayed some more. Wrote the words above … prayed again. Wrote the words below while praying:
We will never know the steps of a another man for we can barely control our own. It is amazing how quickly we can find our way back to sin and vice, but how hesitant we are to restore our steps in the right direction. To judge another is to condemn ourselves. To turn our back on a friend is to abandon ourselves. To protect and justify our own sinful choices is to abandon others. To not forgive and restore a fallen brother is to abandon our God. To not forgive ourselves is to abandon all.
“He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.”
I John 2:9,10
“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
I John 4:20
Pray … for this is the beginning of God's support system for the restoration of any life.
HLFA,
Jeff