I know it may sound crazy, but I've been having some dreams. Dreams that I wake up from knowing that they mean something.
I'm not sure that every dream means something; I've had some weird dreams. I once dreamed that I was being chased around the outside of my house by a giant baby on a tricycle. And this was not just a normal baby... the baby that was chasing after me was the egg-shaped baby from whatever the opposite of "hit cartoon series" is, Histeria. I was terrified.
Now you are almost certainly saying to yourself, "What in the world is Histeria?"
To quote my good friend Kent Oglesby, you would be exactly right. In fact, I hope no one I know besides me is using up brain space on that show. I don't care how infinite brain space is.
Assuming you have no idea what I'm talking about (a safe assumption), all you need to know is that one character on the show was basically an egg with a baby's face and arms and legs sticking out, on a tricycle, and that it has haunted my dreams quite literally. Thats what I get for watching that show MAYBE one and a half times (my friends tell me I have abnormally clear recall of old TV shows from the 90's. They all say, "Tim remembers everything that happened to him in fifth grade." It's a blessing and a curse). And this isn't the kind of "I've only watched this show like once" that you say in second grade to keep people from knowing you watched Barney 4 times that week, although I definitely had my share of those moments... (not that I ever watched Barney...) This is an honest to goodness "I can't believe i put one episode of this show into my head and now it is chasing me around my house."
I'm pretty sure if that dream meant anything, then it was probably "Don't watch crappy cartoons anymore."
I am by no means a dream expert. Some of my friends hold fast to the idea that God speaks frequently through dreams, and some of my friends are less inclined to think about dreams like that. I just don't know a lot about this kind of thing. But what I do know is that this is one of the first times I have felt like God had a message for me in a dream. I've also been feeling like he wants me to share the experience. He likes to speak to His children. And we are really really good at explaining him away.
I am going to describe two dreams, so bear with me.
A few weeks ago I had this wacky dream about aliens coming to Earth and trying to befriend humans. These little guys, who were trying to convince everyone that they were nice aliens, were able to crawl into a person's head and make him/her feel intense pleasure. But in doing that, one would lose control of his/her body to the alien until it crawled back out. The aliens were trying to convince people to come back to their home planet, where they could feel this pleasure all day long if they wanted to. I remember having a really bad feeling about them. I knew something wasn't right. In my dream, there was a group of people who wanted to go back with them, believing that they would make good on their promises. Long story short: there was a big battle between the army and the aliens (the people who were trying to go back with them were fighting on their side), their ship narrowly escaped away into space, carrying the people who had agreed to go back with them, never to be seen again.
Creepy and weird. I was incredibly weirded out that morning.
As I recounted the morning to my friend Pua Coffman, she said, "So do you think it means anything?" as if that's just something normal for us everyday weird dream havers. Which, maybe it should be... That's why I pay Pua to be my friend.
A few days later, I had another dream.
This dream was significantly more disturbing. This dream was about a child molester trying to trick a little boy and a little girl into getting into his car. He was dressed up as a fairy (weird) and he was telling the children that he needed them to help him rescue a princess and save the world. The little kids, who had a love for adventure, were buying it... they just didn't know any better. They began to follow him away, and as they got closer to the car, another man showed up, also disguised. One man said to the other, "Let's leave the girl and just take the boy." I ran to stop them, but before I reached the children, I woke up. And when I woke up, I didn't know what to do with myself. But I knew that the dream was from God, and that it was linked to the first one.
I got in the shower, incredibly frustrated with God. He was trying to speak to me, but did it have to be like that? "Why did you just do that, God?" I kept asking, over and over. I just couldn't stop thinking about it.
Finally, his answer came: "This is the kind of damage Sin does to my children."
The dots quickly began to connect between the dreams. There was a sense of something foreign, something evil, extending an invitation to the naive, an invitation that seemed to be a source of life but was something... destructive. There was also a sense of permanence to the consequences involved; things that can't easily be undone.
And to make it personal, the "let's leave the girl and take the boy" line just had to be thrown in there. It kind of felt like that was supposed to be me.
This wasn't just a lesson to be deflected onto a friend. "So and so really needs to hear this." This lesson was for me. It's funny (not haha funny, but 3 legged dog funny... as my dad likes to say) how easy it is to lose an opportunity to be changed by deflecting a lesson away to someone else in my mind. Even though that person could need to hear whatever God is saying, there is a reason he's saying it to me.
My thoughts and prayers into these two uncommon run-ins with God have culminated into a question:
What's at stake?
What's at stake when I choose Sin? What's at stake for people living in sin, for ten years, for 10 months... for 10 days? What am I getting myself into by walking willingly into this destructive place?
The metaphors I was given answer that question in a way I don't want to think about. But God doesn't call us to ignorance. He desires that we gain greater understanding of the truth. What is at stake? The mangling of our hearts... the disfiguring of our Original Design... that's what's at stake.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
1 Peter 5:8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
A few of my friends have recently expressed disinterest in God... they say "Why would I want to take that path? All it does is tell me things I can't do. It just looks like a bunch of rules and regulations." And why would they take that path when they see no life in it? Meanwhile, life without these "rules and regulations" looks so free, so inviting, so life giving. I completely get it.
This is one of the Enemy's most cunning and effective lies; making freedom look like captivity, and making captivity look like freedom.
We think we are gaining freedom... but we are losing it! This is why I sin! I sense life and freedom in my choices, and I follow them away from Christ. I follow my idols away from my source of life and true happiness, because they look like the very things I was made to desire from God. And... I am walking into future emotional and spiritual scars that aren't necessarily going to go away easily. Ugh.
"But in all that God's purposes are NOT defeated. His plan is NOT destroyed. He is able to not only cover over the multitude of our sins and mistakes, but weave them into our stories to create something beautiful." - Lee Cottrell (After I explained my dreams to him)
Thank you God, that you are a master weaver, and you can weave my mistakes and my scars, no matter how disgusting, filthy, perverted, or evil they are, into exactly what you meant to create from the beginning.
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.
