The Two Tower Dream Part 1

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

The Affliction of the Gravaclavs

“Come quickly Jeff, there is a fellow who has responded to your message, and he is at the altar requesting you pray for him”. (What I found there with this “fellow” at that time seemed almost funny, but as the Lord has awakened this memory, I find it as a painful theme in the lives of so many believers). When I knelt beside this weeping shadow of a man, I heard him weeping and praying; “God please take away my gravaclavs ...please, Oh please take away my gravaclavs.” Gravaclavs?

As I interrupted his praying, to try to console him … I found immediately that I was up against four things – 1. He was drunk. 2. He was broken. 3.He had no idea what I had been preaching. 4.and he wanted a miracle for God to deliver him from something that he did not begin to understand ... "gravaclavs?" (The reason why he was turned over to me - the church counsellors didn't know what to do with him).

As a first year Bible college student, preaching in my home church, I wanted so much to show the congregation and my pastor that I was already a great preacher (youthful ego). I preached a message from John 11 using verse 44 – this was from the story of Jesus calling Lazarus from the dead and from the tomb. It was an awesome story and it afforeded me a cool title for the sermon “Loose him and let him go!” And to note: The delivery was impressive from "my" vantage point even though the only soul that responded to the message was an intoxicated man that was trying to have God deliver him from something he didn't understand.

In my message I had used the word “grave clothes” over and over again. In the church's large auditorium that night there was a formula for misunderstanding: a little whiskey mixed with bouncing acoustics equals the discovery of a brand new affliction to be delivered from called “gravaclavs”. To the heart of this troubled soul it was comforting to feel (I guess) that he had latched on to something he didn't know before he came to church, nor did he understand at that moment. He was reaching out and hoping that this might be the key to deliverance. Let's think about it: Pray to be delivered from something that we don't understand, and then when God delivers us from whatever it was, we won't know what He has done, but everything will miraculously be OK. (or not!) Many times this is where we start ... but to continue this way is oppressing.

Why does this feel so familiar? Why do I find so many tormented in life because they seem more content with being locked in a miserable loop of misunderstanding than to understand and possibly see the way out? John 8:32 – “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. Even this verse at a quick glance can become a mantra that is supposed to work like waving a magic wand and “shazam” we are all of a sudden happy and heading forward in life with an unshakeable victory song. What happened to the rest of the chapter or how about just the verse before it “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; John 11:31”.  The truth that actually sets us free is JESUS, and having a continued intimate relationship with Him through His Word allows us to walk in freedom from establishing our lives on the slavery of error and confusion.

Confusion will always be waiting on the doorstep for those who don't want to “continue (remain) in His Word”. Frustration will fill the life that wants an instant fix instead of a growing, working, intimate relationship with the Truth. The Truth is revealed day by day as we walk with Him through the growing knowledge of His Word, and finally there will be the full consummation of that relationship once we are with Him in eternity. With so much to learn that liberates us along the way, why do we cling to error to build a case for the reason we are hopeless … and more hopeless than anyone else? (There are a lot of answers for this question but if the truth will continue to be studied and to be known, liberty grows and flourishes.)

The truth is we do need help to be loosed from the “grave clothes” of sin. “Forgiveness” or this “loosing” is not proven by a fantasia feeling moment. It is not just a magical word spoken and all is good. Forgiveness is a commitment to support the departure from a fallen moment. Forgiveness keeps bearing up the one needing the forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a power over someone or ourselves that we forgive, but it is the beginnings of positioning the offense, the offended, and the offender in the care of God's saving grace and mercy. My part in forgiveness is supporting and confirming His love today, God's part in forgiveness is securing my love to His love forever. With this foundation I have power to forgive and be forgiven.

 Loose us and let us go, Lord ... “Loose him and let him go!”

HLFA,

Jeff

Wanted - Passionate Poets of Powerful Praise

It was time again to shake off the night for a moment; all the while a thematic thought continued to occur to me even prior to removing myself from my typical position in sleep (the dead man position making the dying moose sound). As I moved toward the progressive walk from the bedroom to the hallway, and down the stairs to the lower floor office; I was met with the culmination of scriptural thoughts that had be doing a spiritual dance within my heart and mind.

Thanks to my youngest brother, I was reminded once again of who I am... My Mother's "Pastor Son". Although Mom is now securely with the lover of her soul ...it is still her birthday and I will remain her Pastor. She would ask me each year on her birthday to uncover and teach her a spiritual truth in a way that she had never heard it taught before. She would remind me that as her Pastor it would be my responsibility and my privilege to perform this service.

Mom became a creative member of our small “congregations” throughout the years. Her respect, love and care for me as her Pastor was such an encouragement in some very dark times. For instance: Mom would honor me by sharing her dreams and desiring an interpretation of those dreams, which the Lord gladly would use me to encourage her fiery soul. She told me that when she got to Heaven that she definitely would put in the good word for me. Possibly she is the reason (for years now), that I wake up driven to this place of writing these HLFAs.

Our God is alive, and those with Him are too! He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Theresa Redding Lambe. Here you go Mom!

This week, I stood in the midst of the brutality of repeated beatings of my soul, and superficial spiritual skirmishes in the Kingdom due to a shallow command and control type of leadership response to the Word of God (Wow! What a mouthful). To put it in another light I will ask a few questions: Why is it that we constantly want to cheat ourselves of the unlimited blessings of God by our careless attitudes toward the reception of His Word? Why do we take out our frustrations then on others by using the Word to “whip them into shape”? It is so sad, that the term “Creator” seems to have become a word we can use to connect to God but from a vast distance. We somehow have little concept of the creativity that God has unveiled and endowed within us via his living Word.

Allow me to give you an example of His Creative encouragement by expanding a translation of a well known verse. This verse is used many times as a rod of correction instead of the hand of encouragement that it actually is.

  James 1:22 - “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
This verse was never meant to bludgeon us into Kingdom obedience, but it was to encourage us into a relationship with our Lord that will prove far more valuable and rewarding than a life of sinful choices with seasonable fading results.

Slow down and try this on your heart instead: James 1: 22 - “Hold on ...it is imperative that you are becoming creative makers, producers, authors, doers, artists, photographers, craftsmen, performers, poets of the living spoken Word, and not disinterested or disconnected hearers only, cheating yourselves of the blessing of the creative connection to the Word by letting the word seem cheap and boring to you”. (Read this prayerfully a few times)

 Hey Mom … here it is! God didn't deliver us from the bondage and destruction of sin just to turn us over to spiritual slave traders, who would bore us while beating us into Kingdom come. He has welcomed us into a Kingdom of creative, rewarding, and loving service to Him and others, that blesses us way beyond the fleeting pleasures of a wasted life of sin. If any man has ears to hear …

Now creatively produce a beautiful poetic love endeavor worthy of the gift of the New Life given to you in Christ. Have at it Kids of the King!

Create a love portrait of Him in you.

HLFA,

Jeff

Fighting Not to Fade

John 19:28 – “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.” (He would now take a sip of vinegar and give up the ghost, but not without this last display of humanness.) He fully understands your most desperate needs.

When I come home, tired after a long day or a long trip, all I want to do is to stay up that evening, just long enough, so that I can appear to have enough energy left to care. That may sound strange but it is true. Sure, my entire being wants to crash into my bed and enjoy the oblivion of “Winkin' , Blinkin' and Nod”. But my soul longs to prove to my beloved that I have enough energy at the end of the day to be there for her.

The inevitable will happen, if I don't do anything to keep consciousness, I will fall asleep. My problem when I am really tired is that I don't know what I really need. So, I will get up from my “nodding out” state and wander to the kitchen (choosing any other room will cause a wandering- zombie-like-state that irritates the fire out of everyone else trying to get to sleep). The kitchen is kind of a neutral ground, and there I have acceptable choices although it boils down to two … Eat or drink? Both seem to have the same immediate affect … a temporary recharge in the strength department (but trust me, it is very temporary).

This will open another can of worms because of the potential for “goodies” to be hanging about that have been either newly purchased or skillfully prepared that day. If I could keep my focus on the purpose of the visit I would be okay. Usually though, I will be thinking “drink of water”. But soon, due to my tired and unwired state, I will find myself over compensating in the eating department instead. Which of course will drain my strength and deplete my sleep also (oh, my tummy hurts). Trying to stay up and not fade into the night is so frustrating at the end of my strength...so EAT?

It is so typically human that when I am hungry I eat too much or when I am thirsty I drink too much. If I have the means, I will fill my closets with a relentless reserve of “what will I eat, what will I drink, and what shall I put on?” But put me at the end of my strength and life is simplified … I must go on. Let me live.

True strength for life is found in a lifestyle that daily recognizes God's provision. He has and is all that I need for life and living. True abundant life is not found in hording God's goodness for ourselves (can't happen anyhow) but in openly sharing His goodness with others. Psalm 92:1,2 – “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High; To show forth Thy loving kindness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness every night,” .

Here is the kicker … so many of us who are connected to the Cross of Christ will be content to live in the discontentment of having no outlet to see God work in our lives. We will eat, drink, and be merry in the land of oblivious bloat, so overstuffed with trivia and cliché that we can't see how awkward and how obnoxious we are in a world dying to know God's love. (Right now, some of us, because of our insatiable desire for self gratification, are fading, nodding, and bowing out in the spell of “I already knew that!”).

The last words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John were:  “I thirst” … Wow!! Meditate on that one. Knowing the character of our Saviour … His thirst was for me, His thirst was for you. Greater love hath no man than this…that a man lay down His life for His friends (and He was laying it down so even His enemies … all of us … could be His friends).

Don't just lay down and go to sleep in the midst of the needs of others … drink in His awesome love and let it spill all over those around you.

Live openly for Jesus ...He lives openly in and for you!

Now I can go back to bed.

HLFA,

Jeff