Skip to main content

dream on...


I have been having rather vivid dreams lately and though I don't take them quite as literally as I used to, nor order my life decisions around them, I do think that sometimes they give me a good gauge of where I am at in my journey of learning. Sometimes they can also provide a solution or clarity on some issue that has been eluding me in my waking moments (just like one can sometimes solve a problem or remember a detail by taking a break and thinking about something unrelated).

In one of my dreams I was confronted with strangers who had come into my home and rearranged my furniture and had given some of my belongings away and were generally making themselves at home without any consideration for whose home it was. I questioned them on their identity and why they were in my home and quickly and firmly, but kindly, let them know that they were to put everything back as they found it and return anything they had disposed of. I then explained that I was a generous person and was happy to share my home with people who asked to stay with us, but since they had not made this request, the guest rooms were already spoken for and I would have to turn them away. I was amazed at my decisive and authoritative manner in the dream, setting things in order and placing the squatters under my authority instead of letting them usurp it.

I do have a tendency to let forceful people take advantage of me sometimes because I am very mild mannered, but I am learning that in the areas that God has placed into my care, I need to stand firm and take responsibility for their well-being. It also clarified for me the line between where I have the authority to change things and where I do not. Today I realised another key part to this is motivation. Being open and accepting and making people feel welcome is a noble thing, but an inadequate and rather weak motivation, I am finding out. A much higher and godly (and therefore more effective) motivation is to pursue the things God is doing, protect the working of the Spirit, and point people in the direction of maturing in Jesus. I welcome Jesus into my home and work and relationships first, and trust him to show me how to deal with each individual and situation that I encounter.

This is Smuggler's Cove near Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim
Post a Comment
Read more

soul refrigerator

I went grocery shopping yesterday and came home with three bags of food. After I unpacked them all, this is what my fridge looked like: really empty. How does that happen? How can I feel so full and ready for any food emergency one moment, and after one quick glance, realise that I have nothing, really? Today is one of those days in my soul as well. I woke up with gratitude and fullness in my heart, ready to take on this day and all the wonderful opportunities that it presented. Then I caught a brief glance of some emptiness in my life and bam - my buoyancy was compromised. For the past few hours I have been treading water, trying to keep my head in a positive space, bobbing in and out of disappointment, and catching myself whining with pathetic indignity at the cement blocks of other people's stupidity that are tangled around my ankles. When I am staring at the empty refrigerator of my soul, these are my thoughts. Where do I go from here? Perhaps I should slam that refrigerator
1 comment
Read more

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go
3 comments
Read more